#martell heals because she deserves it

[jacaranda-jack]

martell and descon have a rough date - lyrics from "weapons" by ava max

[inkandarsenic]

Ok, so expanding on this post for @heartofmortis, meet my newest oc, Nymeria Targaryen

- youngest daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell, born in 283 AC, like a month or so before the sack of KL

- conceived as soon as possible after Aegon, just before the maesters declared Elia unable to have more children and Rhaegar subsequently ran off with Lyanna

- named Nymeria because Elia knew Rhaegar would’ve wanted her named Visenya, but Rhaegar ran off to have a third child with the Northern girl before he could even be informed of this pregnancy, so Elia decided to name her daughter after the legendary warrior Princess of Dorne (call it rebellion if you will — this pregnancy so soon after Aegon’s nearly killed her, and he decides he needs a daughter with the Stark girl? Fine. Elia will name her daughter from her culture, not his. Let him get his Visenya elsewhere.)

- Smuggled by her wetnurse through siege tunnels out to where Rhaella and Viserys were evacuating to Dragonstone. in the chaos after Rhaella’s death, only Viserys and Daenerys are smuggled off of Dragonstone. Stannis arrives to find a terrified nursemaid and a screaming infant less than a year old.

- Raised by Stannis Baratheon, who heard how his brother laughed at the two dead children of Elia, and refused to hand over Nymeria — Stannis is many things, but he isn’t a child-murderer yet

- She’s his ward, and technically also a hostage to keep Dorne from rising up over Elia and her children’s death — Nymeria is the last link to Elia Dorne has.

- Uses Martell name when introducing herself. Tries to distance herself from her Targaryen lineage — was raised on stories of all of the bad parts of the Targaryens as her bedtime stories and history lessons, and doesn’t like them at all.

- Oberyn and Doran work it out with Stannis so that Nymeria can be visited — under supervision, and mostly Oberyn as Doran is busier ruling Dorne — on Dragonstone by her mother’s family, and when she’s a bit older, she often spends a few months each year in Dorne. (You can pry reluctant friends Oberyn and Stannis out of my cold dead hands.)

- Robert tries HARD to get Nym betrothed to Jon — in his mind, Ned’s bastard son is more than deserving of a former princess, and what better way to keep the Targaryen spawn from rising against him than marrying her off to the son of his best friend? To his endless frustration, this goes nowhere — both Stannis and the Martells (who are actually responsible for Nym’s marriage prospects) refuse the idea — Stannis because Jon’s a bastard, the Martells because they very much do not like Robert — and Ned also refuses with no real explanation (“Jon is free to choose his own wife, Robert” when really it’s because Jon is Nym’s half brother through Rhaegar)

- Likes to help out Stannis’ maester and takes an interest in healing — both Stannis and Oberyn agree that this is a useful skill, and let her learn all she can.

- Rides out with Stannis when he goes to war; Melisandre keeps trying to convince Stannis to sacrifice her, and after Renly dies, Davos convinces Nymeria to leave, for her own safety.

- She originally intends to go south to Dorne, but comes across Catelyn and Brienne first. Upon hearing how Renly died and recognizing the account of Melisandre’s work, she realizes Dorne would be the first place Stannis would look for her — whatever Melisandre so desperately wanted Nym sacrificed for cannot be good — and she decides to go with Catelyn and Brienne to Robb’s camp instead. You can never have too many medics in a war.

- Our boy is WEAK to the pretty healers, weak I tell you, and this one is Westerosi, highborn (a princess, technically— rightful heir to the Iron Throne) and she’s a politically advantageous (the princes of Dorne would surely be on his side if he married their niece) match to boot??? He doesn’t stand a chance.

[hchollym]

I would love to see your headcannon for Elia...

I just love her and there is so little about her....

I agree! Elia Martell is amazing & deserves so much more love! ❤️

I said in this post that:

She would have been one of the best queens in the history of Westeros. She was a very hands-on mom who didn't want her children raised by wet nurses. She used to sing to them every night. She had asthma and anemia. She was secretly disappointed that Rhaegar wasn't clever or witty, though she would never say so. She loved flowers. Some of her best memories are at the Water Gardens. She was bisexual. She loved doing charity work and helping the poor. She always wanted a puppy, but her father never allowed her to have one because of her health, so after she married Rhaegar, she got herself an adorable black puppy.

More Elia Martell Headcanons:

-She was very intelligent and loved learning new things through books and/or experiences.

-She studied healing and medicine, and she was able to mostly treat her own health problems (as much as she could with their society's knowledge) without the assistance of a maester.

-She loved music. Even when she wasn't able to dance, listening to Dornish music made her feel light and happy.

-She had a good sense of humor, and she also enjoyed watching plays.

-She felt very burdened by her role as Rhaegar's wife, because she was well aware of the prejudice aimed at her by the people of Westeros, and she felt pressured to constantly "represent" the Dornish people in a positive light, and it was exhausting.

-She loved all animals, and she once nursed a hurt bird back to health.

-One of her greatest fears as a mother was that Aegon would inherit the Targaryen madness.

-She was always drawn to the water and fascinated by the Rhoynish faith/gods (even though she worshipped the new gods).

-She would have been very close to Arianne if she had lived, and she would have been the perfect balance of the "fun aunt" and the role model that helped prepare Arianne to rule Dorne.

-She loved oranges and grapefruit (eating them & the smell).

Thanks for the ask! 😊

[kisant]

Annon-Guy: Feel free to correct me on this, but what do you think drew Emil and Marta to each other and made them fall in love with each other? In my views; Emil - Marta always supported him and changed her views in regards to him. Marta - When she began to see Emil for who he really is, she admired that he gives everything he has in spite of his fears and came to love his kind nature. This can also be extended to Ratatosk Emil too.

Continued Annon-Guy: Outside of Emil X Marta, what do you think of the other major romance pairings (Canon and Fanon)? Lloyd X Colette (Canon), Zelos X Sheena (Semi-Canon), Genis X Presea (Fanon, but I wish it was Canon), Raine X Regal (Fanon) and Alice X Decus (Canon). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, that's a good summary about what I like about the Emil x Marta relationship dynamic and storyline. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think the devs made a risky but smart choice by having the new party be reduced to three characters (Emil, Marta and Tenebrae) with the OG Symphonia cast coming and going depending on plot events. That way, they could dedicate more time to flesh out Emil, Marta and Tenebrae along with their character dynamics and their relationships with each other. Emil and Marta's romantic storyline also benefitted from it, because we can see it develop and mature throughout the game, just like Emil and Marta do. That way, we get a small core of important new characters that the game can take a lot of time developing (Emil, Marta, Tenebrae, Richter, Alice and Decus), while still bringing in the old favourites from Symphonia that players were already familiar with.

About the other pairings, I enjoy all of those as well! Lloyd x Colette is excellent. Symphonia's character and plot writing is top-notch in general, and they dedicated a lot of love and care to writing Lloyd, Colette and their relationship with each other. Their growing closeness feels natural, and so does that they are willing to go to the ends of the earth to save each other, while still saving the world. Refusing to make Colette into a sacrifice while also refusing to forsake the world is the most difficult path to follow, but it is the one that eventually allows Lloyd to find a REAL solution to a problem that had stumped Mithos and the Kharlan heroes for 4000 years. Colette's journey is equally impactful. Because Colette is usually portrayed as being a cheerful, heartwarming, all-loving girl. But we can easily forget that Colette was groomed since she was born to have no care or regard for herself other than in her role of a self-sacrificing Chosen, that she had fully accepted that her fate was to "become an angel" (aka commit ritual suicide) so that the world can flourish. She was just sixteen years old when she was sent on her journey towards her own death, and she hid what the rituals were doing to her body until the final temple so that Lloyd and Genis could continue being happily oblivious to her ultimate fate. It takes the entire Sylvarant arc and most of the Tethe'alla arc for Colette to heal from what the Church of Martel and Cruxis had done to her sense of self and her self-esteem. That's how long it takes Colette to value her own life and want to live for herself, to be able to say no to the Church of Martel and the people of Sylvarant demanding that she kill herself for their sake, to not gracefully accept that she is a terribly selfish and cowardly failure of a Chosen for wanting to LIVE.

And Lloyd is the one who is willing to fight and argue with the entire world that Colette is a person who deserves to live for herself just like anyone else does. Lloyd cares, and the fact that Loyd cares and refuses to give into cynicism or accept sacrifices is what ends up not just saving Colette, but the world too. Because his care for Colette, the girl he loves, end up encompassing the Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, humans, elves, half-elves and dwarves. And that allows Lloyd to bridge the gap between worlds and cultures in order to save everyone, not just save his own group while condemning his "enemies".

Lloyd and Colette are also very fun together, and they are allowed to have fun and be childish when the occasion allows it. The game also gave them a lot of opportunities to dress up and go on little dates, which is adorable. I could talk about Lloyd and Colette forever, but the entire game is a giant Lloyd x Colette ship manifesto.

Zelos x Sheena is also an interesting potential ship because they are dealing with similar issues. It's no coincidence that Mithos made Zelos and Sheena face the same kind of illusion once he trapped them in Welgaia during the last stretch of the game. Both of them struggle with GUILT, Sheena because of the Volt incident and because she was sent to be an assassin in order to save her land when her heart is too kind to ever be one. And Zelos started struggling with guilt after the incident between his mother and Seles' mother, and especially Seles' house arrest. That's also the moment where he truly started to stuggle with and resent the role of the Chosen.

Zelos' other big struggle is whether to be selfish or to be selfless, to continue being the Chosen or allow Seles to be given the burden when he knows all it entails is suffering, to betray the group or risk his neck to save them. He was also the spy, and once the group accepts him, includes him, believes in him and allows him to be himself rather than the Chosen, he starts to feel guilty about his role as Mithos' spy.

Sheena and Zelos also end up in positions of leadership among their respective people, and they have a compatible dynamic. It's fun to see them play off each other, andthey had history together even before they met Lloyd's group. So it makes for some interesting potential relationship dynamics. Especially because Sheena is the one Tethea'lla woman who is very much neither fooled nor impressed with Zelos' fake playboy act. She gets mad at it, and reacts positively when Zelos is genuine and serious.

Genis x Presea is cute, but I can also see it as Presea being Genis' first serious crush that eventually fades. Genis' crush is intentense in the Tethe'alla arc, but it takes a backseat once Genis has to come to terms with Mithos' reveal and Presea has, likewise, to process Alicia's death. Neither of them are anywhere ready for a serious relationship at the end of the game, which doesn't mean that they can't develop some mutual feelings a few years later. And Presea haivng being exposed to an experimental Cruxis Crystal for ten years may actually make her be able to match Genis' half-elven lifespan, so they could have a lot of time for potential feelings to be developed in the future.

Raine x Regal are a good potential pairing as well, as they took the part of "Responsible Adult Team" in the symphonia group, they were the ones to take precautions that the younger members of the team overlooked, and they are on a similar wavelength. Dawn also gave some ship-tease with the letter writing between Regal and Raine.

Finally, Alice x Decus is a good tragic villain pairing, as we can easily see the potential for what it could have been if their circumstances and lives had been different. And they are also an excellent narrative mirror/foils to Marta x Emil, as they showcase nearly all the pitfalls either of them could fall into if they didn't put the work into growing as people and overcoming their character flaws. Instead, Alice and Decus allowed those character flaws to devour them, not even being able to truly communicate how much they cared for each other until they were dying for their beloved. And that's not even getting into what they DO to people they don't care about.

[winter-fox-queen]

Master List of My Writing

Just in case you’re like, “I want to read her silly stuff” I have decided to provide an easy place to find it.

Frankie Morales:

I Only Have Myself to Blame -- A fix-it-fic explaining that the bullshit coke wrap really was bullshit, and that our resident cinnamon roll is completely innocent.  :)  

We all Deserve a Fairy Tale -- a modern day piece of fluff that will hopefully cheer and entertain, Frankie meets a small press author and she falls for him.  Is this finally her chance get her happy ending?

Chapter one

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Writer Wednesdays:

No Cheap Thrill -- Jack Daniels/Agent Whiskey -- a thief is after a prize on a steam ship during a themed poker tourney, but will a certain Statesman agent get in her way?

Small Gambles -- Ezra from Prospect gets a new arm from a less than savory black market doctor, who ends up needing a little help of their own.

The Open Road is Full of Hope — Marcus Pike takes himself in a road trip to give himself some distance, he finds you along the way.

Albatross:  Frankie wanted to give you your dream vacation, but of course angst ensues because the money he wants to use for it is not exactly legal...

The Gentry’s Gifts — modern Pero, he dreams about your every night, but it will take magic…and a vampire…to get you together.

The Gentry‘s Gifts: Max Phillips — Max Phillips was not always an ass. He made some mistakes and took a wrong turn, but an offer from a retiring fairy godmother might give him the change to set things right.

Dragon’s Lair — Frankie meet cute, when he goes to an arcade.

Hope:

Hope is based off the Instyle video.  @hnt-escape and I worked together to create a series of stories...hers were poems, mine were prose.  

Arrival

Here’s Looking at You

Wait

Debts No Honest Man Can Pay

The Wheel

Final Bets

The Thief

Kisses Like Wine — An international thief makes off with your family’s greatest treasure. He dares you to come find him…and leads you on a dance that will change your life forever.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Oberyn Martell

A Rose for Dorne 1

A Rose for Dorne 2

The reader is a survivor of assault, and Oberyn and Ellaria take you under their wings, helping you heal. M/F, M/F/F glazed past smut (not much smut really, implied.) and very heavy issues.

Fire Meet Gasoline:

It’s Dangerous to Fall in Love

Ache for Love, Ache for Us

Certain With Desire

I got All I Need, When You Came After Me

And I Can Barely Breathe

But I Want What I Want

But it’s a Bad Bet, Certain Death

Only Smoke is Left

We Were Meant for Each Other

Javier Peña

Chivalry

[twohundredpower]

❱❱  : ( BAD DAY STARTERS ) –  ACCEPTING

@greatseedling​​​​ said:

↪                   “ i’m so proud of you. i know it’s hard to get past these rough days, but… i still want you to know that i’m proud of you. “ 

It takes everything in Lloyd not to cry at those words, evident by the expression on his face, by the way his shoulders begin to tremble. Somehow.. Martel had the amazing ability of always knowing what people needed to hear; recalling countless times in the past where she had unknowingly been a beacon of support for Lloyd, helping him cope through some of his toughest times on the island. He knew he could let his walls down around her, that she would never judge him for feeling the things that he did; reassured by the way she was squeezing his hand, and smiling at him gently as she always did. 

Even so.. there was a part of Lloyd that felt as though he did not deserve to fall apart in front of Martel as they were, even despite all the support she was offering to him. Knowing her, she might not see it as he did whatsoever, but Lloyd couldn’t ignore the feeling hanging over him, of the memory that was replaying in his head every time he looked in her eyes. He stayed quiet for a moment, doing his best to steady himself-- and when he was finally able to, he returned the pressure around the hand Martel was holding onto with a squeeze of his own.

“.. if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I’d be able to hold myself together at all right now. You saved my mom, Martel.. it was because of you that my dad and I could be with her one last time before she had to go.”

Martel gave his family back to him, while Lloyd had taken hers away. No matter if they had moved on from that, that was something he would hold onto for the rest of his life-- even now, when all Martel wanted was to be there for Lloyd when he needed her. 

But she always deserved that support in return. Maybe it was beyond anything he was capable of doing, but that would never stop Lloyd from doing what he could; for being that same beacon she sought to be for everyone else around her.

“If she left this place while she was still a monster.. if.. we didn’t get to say goodbye to her this time.. I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know what it would’ve done to my dad, and thinking about that scares me more than I’d like to admit.”

“But you put yourself at risk for her-- for all of us. My mom gave us both the courage to keep going without her, to live on and keep her memory with us; and if you hadn’t healed her, neither of us would have that. So even if you’re proud of me, it’s because of you that I can get past this. You’re the one who gave me the strength to keep going.”

“I don’t know if I can ever repay you, but I’ll never forget what you did for me and my family. Thank you, Martel. For everything.”

[janiedean]

ooh so linked to the Brienne ask re: the kingsguard part. What are your thoughts on Aerys’ kingsguard, especially like Arthur Dayne who Jaime from what I remember has complicated feelings for but pretty much idolises him. And they’re so loved by almost everyone in universe!!! Like idk how to think about them really my feelings for them are also complicated

+ okay good because I honestly don’t see why people love them so much like most of the things we’ve heard about them are like. Objectively bad. And like yeah the idea of them is cool but well that can only go so far. also I’m sorry if these asks are a mess I’m exhausted!! ALSO I think you’re amazing for answering all of us anons with such detail I always love coming on to your blog

(putting both asks in the same place uu)

in order: the fact that they're loved by everyone in-universe and fandom actually likes them (or at least arthur dayne hahahahaha god) is like... some of george's best trolling because guess what the entire point is that they're supposed to look like amazing people/the real deal when instead they're all terrible the end - except again for the poor martell prince whom we don't know enough about and I'll give him a pass bc martell people are usually not stupid af but in order:

as I said george has made a point of stating that knighthood is a rotten institution and the kg especially aerys being like... what should be the highest honor for a knight is equally as rotten as knigthood in general and is made of people who do Not Deserve The Title - I mean again hey it's orders so marital rape is fine, hey we're leaving the 15yo to man an entire castle? WHY NOT, the king is mad? WELL WE SWORE TO SERVE HIM, like not counting martell prince there isn't one single person in the aerys kg except jaime who actually upheld the oaths they swore ie protecting the innocent so make of that what you will

the fact that jaime aka the fifteen year old is literally the only one who gets the job and then goes there like 'hey we're basically covering for marital rape what the fuck' and no one else bats an eyelid should already say everything there is to say about these people's moral standard

the fact that none of them actually stuck up for the fifteen-year old who was obviously not ready for the job nor tried to idk do anything to make it easier on him or whatever also says everything about their moral standard because honestly fuck you

the fact that everyone thinks they're amazing jaime included when they're all pretty much shitty is like... well, same as fandom does, which means that the readers bought what people in-narrative do... except that the moment you scratch the surface it's really damned bad

and I'm saying barristan is on thin ice because from his chapters you can see he's like... not a bad dude but like his reaction to jaime being in there still when he saw aerys is 'ah that fucker who killed the king and was so proud he had to try and get into it at fifteen'? like??? fuck you?? honestly the fact that all of them literally served a dude who put people on fire and was a menace/danger to the realm and then have the gall to think that jaime is the worst or who didn't like try to help him or anything while he was obv struggling with his vows and the fact that he was serving a madman says all about their moral standards, again

and honestly arthur dayne is the literal worst of all of them because like - first of all oh you knight the 15yo who goes along with you slaying bandits and you don't try to dissuade him from joining the kg? what the fucking fuck am I supposed to think - second of all you don't even warn him of what is expecting him when he joins when you've been there for a while? - but third of all which drives me insane and I hate that fandom sleeps on it and goes around happily like ARTHUR/LYANNA THE SHIP OF DREAMS... okay listen like I have literally zero investment in lyanna as a character or in r + l and I don't necessarily think he did everything - I think they had a mutual infatuation and eloped and she sorely regretted it and then it was on r. who shouldn't have like acted on it because he happened to be the 20+ year old with a wife and kids, but there's the whole tower of joy situation - in which sorry but we have arthur fucking off KL with other kg people and leaving all the others in the literal shit bc they'd have to deal with aerys and it'd be less of them than they should be, to go with rhaegar to the tower of joy to help him elope which whatever, and then lyanna was left there after r. had to go back... when her brother and father were burned alive and like if she knew that then I doubt she'd have wanted to stay and if she didn't then they withheld fairly important fucking information, so like he stayed there guarding a pregnant 15-16 yo who most likely did not want to be there and who is pregnant by his best friend whose family oh accidentally murdered half of hers........ and lyanna was there even after rhaegar died so I mean it's not like the moment he happened this dude goes and says 'hey maybe we should actually go back and see if we can solve this mess' no he kept her prisoner there anyway - on top of that... here I'm wildly speculating but: he had to know rhaegar was dead and when ned showed up if we are to believe him and idt he was unreliable on that... ned didn't want to fight him or kill him he just wanted to get his sister and leave and like he was most likely in love with ashara aka arthur's sister so why the fuck would he want to kill him right, and like rhaegar's dead and arthur has nothing to lose by letting ned up especially knowing that lyanna is fucking dying in childbirth like she's dying her brother's there just let him up and solve it later esp when the dude doesn't want to kill you....... but no ned had to kill him because he wouldn't budge and why the fucking fuck wouldn't you budge at that point? your side lost the war, the guy you were friends with that you did all of this for is dead, the girl is about to die at least let her die with her family, why? - only thing I can deduce from it: that rhaegar told him that the baby's survival was the most important thing because third head of the dragon blah blah blah and that if the war was lost to just grab the baby and lyanna if she survived and fuck off to essos until he grew up, except that lyanna didn't survive so the conclusion is that he tried to stop ned from going up there bc he'd have found out about the baby and tried to stop them and at that point who gives a fuck if lyanna died or not but he'd have liked... let her die and kill ned in the process and done that most likely, and sorry but when they knightly vows are, I would like to remind everyone, In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women…. like... what, what exactly has this dude done that would qualify as that? because lyanna would be young and innocent and a woman and he basically is letting her die, that behavior does not qualify as bravery and he'd like... deny the kid a chance of growing up with his family period if he killed ned and he didn't seem to particularly give a fuck las we checked, and that's like not counting the whole 'oh I won't tell the 15yo who idolizes me that he's signing

his life away to trauma nor I will support him for shit when he does' part of it, but the tower of joy stuff is shady whichever way you look at it and honestly the more time passes the more I'm convinced this guy is just a complete pos and the worst of them all except gregor when it comes to like 'people thinking you're a good knight and you're actually a pos instead' and I'm dying on that hill until george proves me wrong

and on that the thing is that... I ranted about it once here but basically jaime idolizes the shit out of him because he never saw that even if his subconscious kinda knows because when he had the weirwood dream his greatest fear was confronting the former kg and everyone was accusing him of stuff he couldn't have physically prevented (more ranting on the weirwood dream here) and he's there like 'ah I wanted to be arthur dayne but I became the smiling knight instead' but like... actually he is more of a true knight than arthur dayne can ever hope to be? because like in the above meta I was talking specifically about how to pia he's like... better than arthur dayne, but like not to be that person but jaime who thinks he's the gregor clegane of his time and not arthur dayne, while arthur dayne was... doing the shady toj thing with lyanna - saved an entire city from aerys blowing it up - risked his neck for brienne even if he didn't even like her as in he got himself kicked in a healing stump when he couldn't even stand up for himself so she wouldn't be raped - risked his neck going back for her at harrenhal and jumped into the bear pit without even knowing how he'd manage it - was actually being a decent person to tommen until c. forced him to leave - the moment he saw what happened with pia he gave her her rapist's head when she's like a commoner no one gaf about and took her into her service - when his squire wanted to bed her he like told him to be kind to her jfc - is per tyrion the only relative who actually loved him/freed him/actually stuck up for him (and tysha is on tywin thank you all very much and jaime feels so great about it he doesn't think about it until he can't anymore) (also he was the one chasing the bandits away in the first place so he was probably there like oH I HELPED A MAIDEN too lmao god fuck tywin) - actually stuck for his cat vow bc he took riverrun without bloodshed - sent brienne after sansa with the magic amazing sword because he wanted to upheld their shared vow to cat going against his own family - the moment brienne shows up like hey wanna blow this joint and leave the army you don't wanna lead to find sansa he didn't even like blink before saying yes and I'm supposed to think that in between him and arthur dayne he isn't the only one who actually stuck to his vows as well as he could/knows anything about them/is actually a trueknight™? because lmao the fact that jaime doesn't fancy himself one because of aerys when everyone fancies arthur dayne one when the latter did absolutely fucking nothing beyond slaying bandits to put his money where his mouth was while jaime didn't even like brand himself like that and still did all of that and half of it was acting on instinct not even like doing the math before and *he* was the one wanting to be knighted at fifteen and took his vows seriously when oh wait knightly vows are basically the epitome of selflessness is like again grrm trolling the hell out of everyone characters included but it's clear from the narrative imvho and I can't wait for the moment he serves the just desserts and a) jaime realizes it b) everyone else in-narrative realizes it c) bran timetravels to the fucking toj and we find out what actually went down there and this saint arthur narrative is burned to the ground because honestly no

there, I think I spat out almost all of my venom XD

[greatseedling]

💍: Have they ever been engaged before? What broke it off if so?

More & More! Headcanons > > { anon u opened pandora’s box of drama }​ 

so quick history lesson because i feel like context is kinda necessary to parsing through this, especially since idk who you are, if you know tales of symphonia: martel was engaged towards the end of her life to a half-elven companion, yuan ka-fai, who’d travelled along with her and her brother but she passed away before they’d ever have an opportunity to marry. in her wake, mithos, kratos, and yuan couldn’t cope with her death and instead of accepting her death they keep her soul in stasis in a magic space-tree seed and spend 4000 years 1) literally breaking the world to keep her soul alive 2) building a system of oppression and genocide to feed their various alt plans, 3) create a religious system using her name, make her a fake goddess, and set a practice of human sacrifice to generate body offerings as a resurrection strategy for putting martel’s soul back in her body. her brother, fiance, and best friend are all caught up in their grief of martel (for 4000 years) to the point of enabling each other in this shit show. meanwhile martel is watching this the entire time. 

so thats what martel came into isola with!! memories of a love that was really real and true and beautiful, but after 4000 years of grief really sorta turned into something she couldn’t recognize as love anymore from him. like, he eventually stood up and tried to do something about the situation and try to come to terms with her death... and she appreciates that.

ok so what happened in isola: this all happened in 2018... so some details are fuzzy. as seen above, yuan’s got a lot of trauma regarding martel, and martel isn’t very good with acknowledging her own trauma... so things just sorta got messy. i remember martel found a letter he’d wrote to her (like... in her memory) where he had said something about loving her forever and that broke her? because considering how his love had manifested for 4000 years after her death, she could see that as real and that in the moment really sparked deep trauma in her. she’s had 4000+ years of loving yuan but at this point even she had to step back from her own feelings and consider if he could even love her anymore, or if this obsession was too great. in either case she didn’t feel like she was alive to him even tho she was forced to be alive here in spirale. she knew he had a lot of trauma and emotional issues gong on, but she didn’t know if she could help, or if her being alive in front of him would keep him from improving. it was really heartbreaking for her as someone who loves him so much. i remember she cried a lot. 

so martel dumped yuan because she didn’t know what to do, honestly. she sorta fell back on the idea that he can’t love her as he once had, that she’s just a source of pain and this is a wound she can’t help heal, and she ran away from the situation by telling him that he’ll find someone new, a new love, that he will some day cherish and by doing that maybe she’ll die enough for his mind and he can actually grieve? oof, it was a lot. she didn’t want to break up with him. that was never premeditated or even anything she wanted. in the moment, it was all just so scary. it was all highly impulsive for martel and she honestly took months after to become functional again because it was so intense and many times she considered going back on what she had done. anyways, now its 2021! i think she would struggle to talk about her breakup or anything about their love from 4000 years ago still without getting upset. he was her first love and she’ll always love him. but she has accepted their breakup, and hopes he gives someone the love they deserve and that he receives so much love in return.

i think she put her old engagement ring on a necklace in her bedroom somewhere??

[dolcetters]

Q : QUESTION. would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

VALENTINE’S DAY ALPHABET !

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

this is an extremely ... complicated question to answer for a variety of reasons so let’s just tackle the big ones jfkldsjkgld

the first reason is that dolcetto is legally dead. so, even in a post-promised day situation, i think any form of being “official” as far as marriage goes would be challenging and likely something he wouldn’t want to put his partner through. there’s also the chance/risk that due to realizing HEY, THE MILITARY LIED LOL, THIS GUY AIN’T DEAD that word might somehow find its way back to yuflam and his family--who has already gone through the grieving process, “buried him”, and had that time to heal--is going to have to... essentially relive all that shit and THEN some.

second reason is that while dol would absolutely NOT expect his partner to pop the big question, the chances of him doing so are... uehrjhg... extremely dependent on the state of the relationship, how secure he feels in it, the confidence that asking won’t freak his partner out--like, it has nothing to do with committing and everything to do with “jesus fucking christ, i’m not a human, i’m a lab rat, i’m someone’s C-grade science experiment and what if their friends/family find out, what will they think of them--would people  gossip, would people think less of them for being with something like me--they don’t deserve my baggage” etc etc.

and that’s not even touching on the side-effects of actually BEING a chimera and what that could potentially mean for the relationship in the long term.

prior to 2014 when my original martel was around, he DID propose to and marry her ( albeit the only means of making it ~official~ was getting her a ring due to previously mentioned being legally dead ). it was super fucking cute. he wanted to get her a green ring because it was her favorite color but, you know, colorblind, and it wound up being a blue one but she didn’t care and she didn’t have the heart to tell him because he was already a mess jkf hlfsd ihgsd. this was a much “easier” situation though because martel didn’t really apply to the aforementioned problems. she is/was also legally dead and is/was also not human.

so the tl;dr of this is: he wouldn’t expect his partner to do it, but the chances of HIM doing it are up in the air due to social difficulties and also how painfully, hyper aware he is of how he may be human-passing but he’s just NOT human and the consequences that could have specifically for his partner. he doesn’t give a shit about himself or what he might want in all of this, it’s that he doesn’t want the person he loves to have to Deal™ with just how fucked over he is.

[fableweaver]

Arc of the Bastard Mage

Arc of the Bastard Mage

The crowds seemed worse than the day before as they marched up the hill towards the palace and the Tower of Balal. Xavier noticed it was mostly mages around them as they walked few servants and slaves among the crowd.

“Are you sure we should be going today?” Martel asked as they walked.

“Today the library will be mostly empty,” Xavier said. “Everyone must be gathering at the palace.”

“The king will be giving a speech,” a passing mage said. “That is why we are gathering.”

“Thank you,” Xavier said to the mage, a woman with a hint of blonde to her hair. “I hadn’t heard the king was speaking, I’m surprised I thought he stopped making public appearances.”

“He hasn’t been seen in over twenty years,” the woman answered. “Not since the wars. This is a special occasion though; I guess to you it isn’t much of a big deal reaching a hundred years of life.”

“It is a big deal to anyone,” Xavier answered, knowing what she meant. The Aldan could live for nearly a hundred and fifty years, and not have aged until they were about to die. “I dread the day I see my first wrinkle.”

The woman only made a sour face and kept walking. Xavier shook his head, he never understood the desire to live for an eternity, probably because most of his life he had wished he was dead.

They reached the top of the hill and looked out into the great open courtyard between the palace and tower. It was full of mages, a sea of white as people gathered to face the palace. City guards stood at the entrances of the streets. When they reached the guards they were stopped, the mage stepping in front of Xavier.

“No slaves beyond this point,” the man said. “Turn back.”

“I am a free servant sir,” Xavier said pointedly. “I do not wear a mage sigil.”

“You still don’t get passed,” the guard answered. “Only mages beyond here.”

“Xavier,” Martel said taking his sleeve.

“Go on milady,” Xavier said knowing it would be strange if they all turned back. “We’ll meet up later alright?”

He winked at her and Martel nodded in understanding. She and Lycus led the other children into the square joining the crowd of mages leaving Xavier with Kalyani.

“Now what?” Kalyani asked as she and Xavier walked back a ways.

“We step sideways,” Xavier answered and Kalyani grinned. They slipped into a shadowed ally and called on the Elder Magic. It was a small amount of aether to let wash over them as they stepped into the aether distortion. Xavier hoped it was a small enough amount that it wouldn’t be noticed.

They walked back out keeping to the shadows. The point of stepping sideways was to hide, and it worked better in dim light and darkness. Out in broad daylight it didn’t work as well, but they were still able to slip past the guards and into the crowd. They tried to keep from touching the mages as they walked by, luckily the mages stood far enough apart it wasn’t a problem.

Xavier looked for Martel and the children, spotting them at last fairly far into the crowd, probably carried by the tide of people. They caught up with them and stepped back into sight, the mages around them focused on the palace they didn’t notice.

“Xavier,” Martel said relieved as he appeared next to her. “Should we head for the library now?”

Xavier almost answered, but while he was scanning the crowd to make sure no one had noticed them something caught his eye. They were standing a few spans away from the marble pillared walkway along the side of the courtyard, the walkway was empty, but for a few lone figures marching along between the pillars. Even at this distance Xavier recognized one of the men and felt his blood boil.

He hurried off leaving Martel and the others in the crowd. Once again he stepped sideways, a few mages next to him jumping as he vanished, but they did nothing but shake their heads in confusion. He reached the walkway, the pillars casting long shadows in the morning light. His target had two guards next to him as he walked towards the palace and Xavier drew his sword. Xavier stepped up behind one unseen and hit the man on the temple with his pommel. As the first guard fell Xavier turned to the second and did the same as the man turned to try and see their invisible assailant. The guards dispatched Xavier put his blade to his target’s throat and stepped back into visibility.

“Grandfather,” Xavier said darkly facing the man responsible for his birth.

Varas Lonelove looked at him with hooded red eyes, his face set in a look of superiority despite the blade at his throat. He looked exactly the same as the last time Xavier had seen him when he was only thirteen. His hair and skin as white as snow, his face was unlined but gaunt.

“Xavier,” Varas said with distain. “You’re alive.”

“What are you doing here?” Xavier asked. “I thought you were Dridia’s ambassador to the King’s Council.”

“I left to come and see how Ilya was doing with his immortality research,” Varas answered.

“I should have known you had your hand in that disgusting experiment,” Xavier said, his knuckles white as he gripped his sword with all his strength. The blade remained steady as he stared his Grandfather down. Even looking into those red eyes was hard, memories he had long since buried coming to the surface.

“Believe it or not Xavier I have been working all my life to protect our people,” Varas scolded. “You were meant to protect our people from the other Kingdoms so that we would not be overrun as we sought ways to preserve our dwindling numbers. Everything I have done it was for Dridia.”

“Everything?” Xavier said darkly and saw Varas flinch. His eyes burned and his nostrils flared with his anger. Xavier knew him well enough to know that anger was defensive, Varas was ashamed of his predilection. Had there not been a blade at his throat Varas would have attacked.

“You were a spoiled child and I needed to make sure you were properly disciplined,” Varas answered.

“You call raping me discipline?” Xavier hissed, his sword nicking Varas’ neck and spilling blood.

“Xavier, I am your grandfather,” Varas said, his tone still scolding as if Xavier were still a child. “I am your only kin.”

Xavier felt his rage burning in him as he stared at Varas. This man had murdered his father, caused his mother’s death in the birth of him. He had made Xavier’s life and existence a burden he had wanted to rid himself of for years. He had ruined his childhood and taken any future away from him. He deserved to die a thousand deaths in the most painful of ways.

“Xavier,” Martel said and he turned to see her, the other children, and Kalyani standing at the pillars. The looks on their faces made him stop his throat dry. Shame burned through him at the look of disappointment on their faces. Zaire would have understood, and her sympathy would have cooled his anger into a healing sorrow. But Martel and the others showed him what pain his anger could cause.

“Who are they?” Varas said shocked staring at the mage children.

“They are ancient mages from the isle our ancestors fled from,” Xavier answered. “I saved them from an island that had been preserved by a time seal until it broke ten years ago. They are mages of ancient power.”

Xavier had never seen his grandfather shocked and found it almost satisfying.

“Come Martel,” Xavier said, satisfied to see Varas flinch at the name and didn’t bother elaborating that this Martel was not the same as the heroine from the tale. “We should go see the King’s speech.”

He withdrew his blade and sheathed it, about to turn away when Varas gathered his power. Xavier had never seen anyone draw a dual attack sigil in the matter of a heartbeat, and could do nothing as Varas’ sigil formed towards him. Suddenly Kalyani was there between them, a wing appearing on her back as she shed her skin just enough to let her wings free. She cut Varas’ sigil with her wing and kicked him in the gut sending him tumbling back.

Varas coughed and gasped as he struggled to his feet, staring up at Kalyani and Xavier standing over him.

“Oh I forgot to introduce Kalyani a Griffin of the same isle,” Xavier said. “One of the Younger races of the Phay the Griffins can apparently cut through High Magic with their feathers.”

“Xavier,” Varas gasped, shaking with either fear or rage. “Wait…”

“No Grandfather we’re done here,” Xavier said coldly. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Varas said. “You girl, Martel!” Xavier saw Martel raise her head at her name to meet Varas’ gaze. “You belong with your kin, all of you. You deserve to live as royalty and be taught the true power of the High Magic. Please do not listen to this mad man, he is little better than Atlas!”

Xavier waited, watching Martel carefully though he wanted to argue with his grandfather. Martel looked at him hesitantly and Xavier saw her resolve. She walked forward and stood by Kalyani and Xavier looking down at Varas.

“And where does Xavier belong?” Martel asked and Varas hesitated. “We belong with him and he belongs with us, because we are family.”

She took Xavier’s hand and led him away from his grandfather, Kalyani following them withdrawing her wings.

“You will regret this,” Varas said as they left. Martel just gripped Xavier’s hand harder as they walked into the crowd of mages again.

“Thank you,” Xavier said as they walked through the crowd and towards the tower of Balal. “How much of that did you overhear?”

“Everything,” Martel said. “He hurt you when you were a child didn’t he?”

“He did,” Xavier said but he knew she didn’t understand to what depths. He never wanted her to know that reality. She held his hand harder and Xavier felt Lycus take his other hand.

“Let’s go to the library while everyone listens to the boring king,” Lycus said with a forced smile.

“Of course,” Xavier said with his own forced smile, though it didn’t feel as strained as it normally did.

They walked through the crowds, when mages gathered in large numbers like this they tended to stand apart loosely making it easier to weave between them. They were half way across the courtyard when a blare of trumpets sounded, magically enhanced so they rang out across the courtyard. Xavier looked up at the palace to see the great doors opening. A figure walked out, stooped with age. Xavier couldn’t make the King out at this distance, but he didn’t need to. Sigils blazed and soon the King’s image was hovering in illusion over the crowd.

Nicias was so old his skin had become almost transparent, all his veins and tendons standing out in ropy lines over his neck and hands. His hair was wispy and thin, and his eyes dark red with power. Xavier realized he had a bit of a glow about him, probably from a full century immersed in the High Magic unlike Martel’s natural glow.

“My people,” Nicias said his voice low but carried by the sigils blazing around them. Xavier saw his fingers dancing and lines of power coming from his hand and realized all the sigils of illusion and sound had been cast by him. Nicias was showing he was still a mage of great power despite his age.

“Today marks one hundred years I have had in this life, and eighty four years I have been your king. I hold this honor dear and thank you my citizens for your support all these years.”

Xavier rolled his eyes, sensing this was going to be a long and dry speech. He was about to turn away when two other figures stepped up behind Nicias. Ilya stood tall and young next to his father, none of his years showing on him. Ileana stood serine as a marble statue, and just as beautiful. Nicias kept droning on either unaware his children were behind him or he didn’t care.

Xavier watched Ilya closely, wishing he could kill the bastard but knowing he couldn’t. As he watched however Varas joined Ilya on the steps of the palace. Varas whispered in Ilya’s ear and he looked around astonished. So Xavier’s cover was blown. They exchanged words and Varas stepped aside to talk to some guards.

“We need to get out of here,” Xavier said afraid.

“How?” Martel asked having seen the same thing and drawn the same conclusion. “With sigils they’ve probably already warned the other guards.”

“They are already gathering,” Kalyani said.

“How fast can you get word to the others?” Xavier asked Kalyani.

“Wait,” Kalyani answered. She looked to the sky, spotted a sylph and called it down. She whispered to it and set it racing off on the wind. “The sylph will reach them in minutes, but it will take them time to arrive here.”

“Let’s try to get to the tower,” Xavier said. They slowly began to make their way to the Tower of Balal.

Xavier was keeping his eyes on Ilya and Varas, surprised by the alliance they seemed to have. Watching them glare at each other he realized this was a shaky alliance at best. He felt a foreboding, like darkness was closing in around them and it had nothing to do with the gathering guards.

“Xavier, something is about to happen,” Kalyani gasped. Xavier felt it too, but could not figure out what it was. Then he saw the king’s shadow distort and rise. A spear of darkness rose out of the shadow and stabbed Nicias through the heart. There was a moment when his sigils held his image over the crowd with a look of surprise, the sound of his last breath echoing over the crowd.

The shadow vanished and Nicias fell dead to the steps of the palace. A moment of dull shock strangled the air with silence before a woman screamed. The mages surged up and the crowd became chaotic, pushing and shoving suddenly. Xavier shouted and turned to the children, relieved to see they were all holding hands. He reached for Martel’s hand and pulled her along towards the Tower of Balal.

They pushed and shoved their way through the panicked crowd, others similarly trying to keep their feet as people either tried to flee or run towards the palace. Xavier knew who had been behind the assassination; that power had not been a High Magic sigil or Nicias would have countered it. Ilya had gotten Tobias to do his dirty work for him.

They reached the tower and Xavier was relieved to see the guards were all trying to keep the crowd calm and under control. They hurried inside; Xavier counted heads and glad to see all were accounted for.

“To the top of the tower,” Xavier said.

“Will we be able to get to the top?” Martel asked.

“I can take care of any sigils in the way,” Kalyani answered.

“And I can take care of anything else,” Xavier added. “Now go!”

Xavier could see the sadness in Martel’s eyes as they hurried through the entry hall of the library, her regret obvious that she would not get to enjoy the library. They hurried through the empty hall and to the tower proper, heading for the stairs that wound their way around the tower. There were magical lifts that would have been easier to use, but there were guard sigils on those to prevent them from reaching the top. If Kalyani tried to break those she would only make the lift inoperable.

The stairs wound up the tower in an enclosed well and they hurried up the steps. The children were all in good shape and were able to keep up as Xavier hurried up the steps. About half way up they heard shouts and sounds of pursuit.

“I’ll slow them down,” Martel said and turned. She took out her wand and drew a warding sigil behind them on the steps, the magic blazing as it sealed of the steps behind them. It was a high level seal and she had drawn it with a lot of power, it would take a mage of some skill to break that.

“Hurry, they can use the lift unlike us,” Xavier said.

They kept going, Martel or Lycus pausing occasionally to draw a ward behind them. Xavier would have added an Elder Magic ward, but there wasn’t time since those took longer.

They started to reach the tower’s wards and Kalyani took the lead, sheading her human skin and walking through the wards as if they were rain, shattering the magic. They kept going, no mages coming to meet them on the stairs ahead. Xavier realized that even though the mages could use the lifts to head them off, none had because they had thought the intruders would have been trapped by now by the tower’s defenses.

They reached the top of the tower and Xavier stared in awe at what the mages had topped the Tower of Balal with. A great glass dome crowned the tower, etchings of the stars and constellations covering the dome. Xavier couldn’t help but gaze up at it and think that Zaire would have loved it. Then a bird shape moved over it followed by another. The Griffins had arrived, wheeling around over the tower hidden in the clouds.

“Xavier,” Kalyani said and he turned to see she had opened one of the great windows along the wall. “I have called the Wild Braves over here.”

“Good,” Xavier said. “Will they be able to fly in here?”

His question was answered instantly by Kavi shooting in like a stone from a sling, the young griffin skidding to a halt on the marble floor.

“Sorry we’re late!” he shouted.

“Enough,” Xavier said. “How did you manage to get the harnesses on?”

“We managed to slip them on but they aren’t buckled,” Kavi answered and Xavier noticed he was right.

“Castor and Felix help the griffins buckle the harnesses and the other children mount,” Xavier ordered. “Martel…”

“We’re holding the door,” Martel said. She and Lycus were by the door drawing wards and seals over the door. They moved on to the lift doors and drew seals over them as well. Xavier hurried to help buckle harnesses as the griffins landed in the room, and then helped each child mount their griffin.

He heard a crackling and turned to see Martel and Lycus’ wards were under attack. He couldn’t see the mages on the other sides of the doors, but light was blazing as they tried to break the wards.

“Go, hurry,” Xavier said as Martel mounted Kalyani, Raja having brought her harness.

“What about you?” Martel asked afraid.

“I’m coming don’t worry,” Xavier said. He saw she was clearly worried, but Kalyani turned away before Martel could argue. Kalyani leapt out the open window, her wings snapping open. The others followed her, Xavier waiting until the last griffin was clear before he began to form his skin. The wards were thin now; the guards close to breaking through. Xavier ignored them as he concentrated on the skin.

The wards broke with a thunder clap, three mages leaping out with sigils blazing in their hands. They broke through just in time to see Xavier step into his skin and change form in to the osprey. The mages shouted and threw their attack sigils, but they bounced off Xavier uselessly.

“Don’t bother,” Xavier said, his voice coming out as an odd croak. He spread his wings and took flight, leaving the mages staring after him stunned. The wind hit him hard when he left the window and for a moment he lost his wings and tumbled through the air before he righted himself again.

The wind around the tower was chaotic, a great cloud swirling around the top of the tower to hide the top of it. Xavier flew through the cloud confused, letting the wind carry him until he was out of the cloud and into open air. Xavier glided looking down far below to see the people like ants in the square below him. They were still milling around and he could hear Ilya’s amplified voice calling for them to stay calm.

Xavier turned away; he knew what Ilya would do. The prince was going to paint Xavier the assassin, calling him the new Atlas. It was ironic, Xavier felt like Ilya was closer to being Atlas than he was. He had corrupted and twisted lifeforms, he had just murdered his own father, and soon he would rule like a tyrant over the people. Only this time they didn’t know they were being ruled by a monster.

Xavier saw the griffins forming up and joined them, Kalyani turning her beak south. They flew high to avoid detection, flying among the greater sylphs, the creatures little more than swirls of air and cloud. They flew until Xavier found a place to shelter, a grove of trees at the top of a hill. It was midday but they decided to stop and leave again when night fell.

“What happened?” Raja asked once they had set up camp. Kalyani filled in the griffins about the events and their failure to gain any information.

“I’m sorry Martel that we had to leave so early,” Xavier said and she shook her head.

“We will return when it is safe again,” Martel said.

“I’m afraid it might never be,” Xavier said. “Ilya, the prince and now king, is allied with Kal Ba’el and the Legion. Dridia is headed in a dark direction.”

“What of that war?” Kalyani asked. “I overheard you talking to some people about a war to the south.”

Xavier had gotten some news and gossip while he was with Kalyani and he nodded.

“Regis is at war with Lir,” Xavier said. “A usurper to the Lirian throne killed the king there. The High King has a nephew in line for the Lirian throne so he is trying to get his nephew on the throne. As far as I can tell this is nothing new. The kingdoms have warred like this before; many families have lost their crowns to a usurper who managed to gain control of the kingdom.”

“The timing of this war is the same as when the Phay intend to march,” Kalyani said. “Are you sure they are not connected?”

“It just means the Kingdoms are at business as usual,” Xavier said, but he felt a sense of foreboding. “But I’ll think on it Kalyani. Let’s get some rest and head out at dusk.”

It was difficult sleeping in the middle of the day, but everyone had an exciting morning so an afternoon nap was almost welcomed. They set out again at dusk heading south, Xavier leading the way. He had studied maps, but he had never traveled this way before nor by air. Xavier soon thought of following the southern trade road by air so they wouldn’t get lost. He realized though this wouldn’t work at night, even Shankar had trouble seeing the road from the air at night.

So they stopped again and set out in the morning. This time the griffins flew high and Xavier low enough to see the road, and the griffins followed him. Xavier found they covered leagues much faster in the air despite having to take frequent breaks to rest. In two days they had flown over much of Dridia. Xavier looked down on the ground a lot of the time feeling a sense of awe at the land rolling below him. Southern Dridia was hilly and full of Elmerian farms. Few mages lived outside Myr, their dropping numbers meant they were gathering more often in the city. They passed a few large villages and towns, but none were city sized.

On their third day of flight Xavier watched the sky nervously. The morning had been gray with a spring storm, yet they had taken off hoping it would clear. Outside of Myr the mage’s weather tampering had made unpredictable storms at times. Xavier eyed the storm to the east with apprehension, seeing the greater sylph in the storm was angry. Lightning flashed in the clouds and the sylph paced around like an angry cat, moving further west with each pace.

Kalyani flew in next to him, her ears flat against her head.

“We need to land!” she shouted. “That sylph is angry.”

Xavier nodded, and looked to the ground ahead. The road continued on empty until he spotted a structure off in the distance. He could just make out a roadside inn at a crossroads in the lee of some rocky hills.

“There, we’ll land among the hills,” Xavier shouted and Kalyani nodded. The wind was becoming turbulent as lesser sylphs fled the angry storm sylph, Xavier struggling to keep his wings as he flew for the rocky hills. The hill stood tall over the surrounding land making for an easier target, but with the winds as turbulent as they were it was going to be a rough landing. Xavier struggled as he neared the hill and shed his skin midair, landing and rolling to his feet. He swore as he scrapped his knee on a rock, ripping his pants.

He stood dusting himself off just in time to see Kavi crash land next to him in a lump of feathers and fur.

“You alright?” Xavier asked.

“Still the master of crash landings,” Kavi said as he stood and shook himself. “Nothing broken.”

“I’m starting to think your skull is made of rock,” Xavier said helping Kavi out of his harness and bags. Esha and Lila landed with Alex and Cyrus, much more graceful than Kavi.

“Nope, just full of them,” Lila said having heard Xavier.

“Thanks,” Kavi said laying his ears back. The other griffins landed and they hurried to take off the harnesses and packs. They found an overhang to take shelter under, but it looked like a tight fit.

“There was a building down by the road,” Martel said looking into the cave full of griffins. There was barely room for the griffins to move about without stepping on wings.

“I think that was an inn telling by the stables,” Xavier said. “Crossroads are a popular place for inns. Would you rather sleep there tonight?”

“I think it would be best given how tight it is here,” Martel said.

“Kalyani,” Xavier said and she turned to him, or at least tried to given Vasu was in her way. “Me and the mages are going to the inn and stay there for the night to give you some space. Help yourself to the rations.”

“Be careful,” Kalyani answered. “It looks like it is about to rain.”

Xavier nodded and waved the children to follow him. They hurried but they still didn’t beat the rain; it started as they made their way down the hill. It was coming down in sheets making the footing treacherous as they struggled down the rocky hillside. At last they reached the bottom with a few scrapped hands and knees. Xavier noted the children didn’t cry at scraped palms, they had dealt with worse in their lives.

The inn was more like a compound, four buildings surrounded by a wood palisade. They walked to the road and slogged their way through the mud to the gate which was closed. Xavier pounded on the door until a little peep hole slid open.

“Who are you?” the man behind the door asked.

“Travelers,” Xavier answered shortly. “Now open up.”

“Why should I?” the man asked.

“This is an inn isn’t it?” Xavier asked angrily.

“It is but only for those with coin,” the man answered. Gritting his teeth Xavier took out his purse string and held out a copper piece.

“Only one copper?” the man whined taking the coin.

“I have steel if that would suit you better,” Xavier growled his hand going to his sword.

“No this is fine,” the man said and quickly shut the peep hole. Xavier waited impatiently in the rain as the man opened the gate enough for them to file in. Xavier glared at the gatekeeper, a weedy Elmerian man. Once the children were all in and the gate shut the man pointed over to the inn across the muddy courtyard.

“Welcome to the Hanged Man’s Crossroads,” the man said grinning. Xavier looked at the inn with distaste. It was large and old, looking like a lord’s forgotten mansion. There were two smaller cabins off to the side, and the stables on the other side. The place looked rundown and shady, Xavier sure the beds were going to be lice infested.

“Need help with your bags?” the gate keeper asked snidely, knowing they didn’t carry anything. Xavier glared at him and aimed a kick at the man’s legs, but he danced aside snickering. Before Xavier could go after him Martel tugged on his sleeve.

“Can we go inside now,” she asked in a small voice. She was shivering and soaking wet, her glow dull and lips blue. The other children were in much the same state and Xavier sighed.

“Right, come on,” Xavier said leading the way off.

“Have a nice stay!” the gate keeper shouted after them and Xavier made a rude gesture back at him. The wind was blowing strong now and Xavier felt hail mixed in with the rain as they hurried across the courtyard.

When he opened the door it was nearly blown off its hinges, and he struggled to hold it as the children hurried in. He slammed the door shut, turning to look into the inn. It was worse inside than outside. The common room looked like it had been made by knocking out several walls to make it big enough, the wood floor covered with straw and saw dust to absorb any foul liquids spilled onto it. A rough bar was set up at one end and odd tables and chairs filled the rest of the room. It was smoky from the fireplace, the room lit with greasy tapers and candles.

The patrons were Elmerian and Markian, a few Rhodin mixed in. The Elmerians looked like wagon workers, the burly men that worked in trade caravans. The Markians looked like drovers, probably taking their break from the cattle out on the highlands. The Rhodin were typical for their kind, they had a table to themselves, only two women with five men.

“Welcome travelers,” the man at the bar said as he stepped around to greet them. He was Elmerian, tall and heavy set. His striped apron was grease stained and covered his big beer belly, tucked into his waistband. The man had a pudgy nose and was missing an eye, but his smile was warm and welcoming. “Name’s Benny, what’ll be your pleasure?”

“A room until this storm dies down,” Xavier said. “A private room.”

“Sure thing,” Benny answered. “Three silvers.”

“A hundred coppers,” Xavier answered and continued to haggle until he got down to a hundred fifty coppers. He paid the inn keeper, got the key, and was about to lead the children off to the room when Benny stopped him.

“There’s no heat up there,” Benny said. “This is the only warm place in the inn.”

“Great,” Xavier said displeased. He walked towards the fireplace where a spit was turning, a dog on a wheel turning the spit. The children started to peel off their wet and muddy clothes, Xavier joining them. He heard someone snicker and looked up to glare at the group of Markians, the men quieting at his glare.

“Xavier,” Martel said. “I’ll take your clothes and dry them.”

Xavier handed over his tunic, never taking his eyes from the other men. There were ten of them, all the typical Markian brute with more balls than brains. They glared right back at him; Xavier guessing more than one was tempted to risk a beating for the chance at one of the children. The Elmerian waggoneers were watching as well, though they looked more wary. Only the Rhodin seemed disinterested, though Xavier noticed they cast a few dirty looks at the Markians.

Martel and the others worked on drying the clothes, seeming oblivious to the tension in the room. She finished drying his clothes with a sigil and handed them back, Xavier pulling his tunic back on. She tried to take his pants off but he waved her off, so she cast the sigil on them while he wore them. Martel laughed a little as he scowled at her, the sigil making his pants glow a bit.

Xavier heard a few snickers across the room and glared again at the Markians. Before he could do anything Benny appeared carrying a tray of food.

“Thought you lot would be hungry,” he said setting the tray down on the table.

“Thank you,” Martel said as the children crowded around to sit at the table to eat. Xavier looked at the food surprised, oat bread, thick butter, a bean and bacon soup, a meat pie, and several baked potatoes sat on the tray. It was simple traveler’s fair but it was much better than the thin cabbage soup and gruel he had been expecting. Benny went to the spit and cut off a generous portion and put it on the table.

“Y’all want some ale too?” Benny asked.

“What’s ale?” Lycus asked.

“No we have water,” Xavier said ignoring him. Benny simply nodded and walked off, giving a glare to the Markians which seemed to make them shrink back. A little more relieved Xavier sat at the table making sure to still face the room. They ate, Xavier surprised to find the food as good as it looked. The children chattered quietly, occasionally venturing a question to Xavier which he answered.

Melissa, Jove, and Rufus started to feed scraps to the spit dog, laughing as they made him run faster for his treat. The other children started to play with the cutlery, making an imaginary war between the knives and spoons. Xavier watched them, laughing occasionally at one antic or another, when the door suddenly banged open.

Startled everyone turned to see four figures stumble in. The two shorter men hurried to close the door but the wind had it, the third taller man turning to help them. The last was a woman; she had fallen to the floor and was struggling to stand under the weight of her sodden fur cloak the hood over her face. Xavier stood and hurried to help her to her feet, lifting her up from the elbow.

“Are you alright?” Xavier asked, her head low bent over something in her hands.

“I’m fine,” she answered as she finished cleaning her glasses. She put them on as she raised her head to look up at him, pushing back her hood. Xavier stared in shock looking down at Zaire who was just as stunned. For a heartbeat time seemed to stop, and then Zaire’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell in a dead faint. Xavier already holding her elbow held her up, wrapping his arms around her sodden form.

Before his mind could even try to comprehend how Zaire was suddenly in his arms he felt a blade at his throat.

“Let go o her scum,” a man in a Daunish accent said. Xavier looked to see the door had been closed, the three men standing around him. The Daunish man, the tallest one though he barely stood above Xavier’s shoulder, had a dagger at his throat. The other two were dark haired and so short they barely stood above Xavier’s elbow. But both were armed with swords and had them drawn. Xavier felt rage which he quickly clamped down on, now was not the time to get into a fight.

“Oi, no fighting in my inn,” Benny said appearing. “You sir, put the lady down.”

Reluctantly Xavier moved Zaire over to a chair and put her down, the Daunish man removing his dagger so he could kneel next to her. He took off Zaire’s wet fur cloak, trying to revive her gently. Xavier stepped back, but kept close his mind still in shock. The two other men sheathed their swords, one turned to Benny.

“Sorry for the disruption,” he said to Benny. He had an odd accent, one Xavier had never heard before. “We are travelers looking for lodging.”

“Of course,” Benny said and they started to haggle. The other man looked at Xavier, glaring at him at first before his face suddenly went white. He pulled on the other one’s arm and said something in a low voice. The other stopped and turned to look at Xavier too. His face took on the same look. He handed over whatever Benny had asked for and the two quickly hurried over.

“Who are you?” the leader asked staring at him. Up close Xavier could see he looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place where he had ever seen the man.

“I’m not sure I should answer that,” Xavier said. “Not when you don’t have the courtesy to introduce yourself.”

“You are right,” the man said with a quick bow. “My name is Donar, Chief of the Emir Clan. This is my captain Darin.”

Neither of the names meant anything, but the name Emir sounded so familiar Xavier had to shake his head as if to clear it.

“You are Eileen reborn aren’t you?” Darin asked and Xavier looked at him surprised.

“I am,” Xavier said looking at them closely now. “You are dwarves aren’t you?”

“We are,” Donar said. “I’m not sure if you remember or not but you and I met in our past lives. When you were Eileen and I was Emir.”

“I don’t remember,” Xavier said.

“I can help you with that,” Donar said. “We chiefs of the dwarves know how to recall the memories of our past lives. What is your name in this life?”

Before Xavier could answer a groan interrupted them. They turned to see Zaire coming to, the Daunish man helping her.

“Are you alright Zaire?” The man asked putting his hand on her shoulder. Xavier felt jealousy seethe through him, his heart constricting with the realization that Zaire might have moved on thinking he was dead.  

“I thought…” Zaire started to answer, her hand on her forehead, when she turned to Xavier. Everyone else in the room disappeared as their eyes met, Xavier thinking she might faint again. Instead she leapt to her feet pushing the Daunish man aside and running to leap into Xavier’s arms.

Then they were kissing, teeth knocking together but neither cared. There were tears and laughter between the kissing, Xavier holding her just as tight as she was holding him. They kissed with frenzied energy, both putting all their desire into kissing since they couldn’t do more in the middle of a tavern room. Eventually their excitement died down and they stood with foreheads pressed together, breathing heavily.

Xavier felt her in his arms, different than the last time he had held her in a storm tossed ship at sea. Her hair had grown slightly longer, the ends now just past her shoulders. Her hands were calloused and rough on his neck, her fingers cold as she stroked his face. She was more filled out; having gained back weight she had lost due to hardship. She smelled of wet fur and horses, her simple travel clothes wet and muddy.

“You’re alive,” she breathed, her body trembling against him.

“So are you,” he whispered in awe. “How?”

“It’s a long story,” she answered.

“Same,” Xavier said.

The door suddenly opened and Xavier turned to see two more dwarves come in and there was a scramble to get the door shut. The two men came over to join Donar and Darin, both were clearly Dwarves as well.

“These are our kin Hakk and Bgrim,” Darin said with a wry grin. “Telling by Zaire’s reaction I would guess you are Xavier.”

Xavier looked around and realized everyone in the room was staring. Zaire blushed crimson and hid her face in his chest, Xavier grinning.

“Your guess is right,” Xavier answered. “I think introductions are in order.”

He turned to see Martel was staring with the biggest smile on her face and felt glad that she was glad. The other children were watching fascinated, Lycus’ mouth hanging open. Xavier looked back and saw the Daunish man looking sullen and disappointed, but not as angry as Xavier would have expected if he was Zaire’s new lover.

“This is our guide Ronan,” Darin said seeing his gaze and Xavier nodded.

“These are my traveling companions,” Xavier said indicating the mage children. “Well half of them at least. This is Martel…”

“What?” Zaire said shocked looking at Martel.

“Not the Martel,” Martel answered blushing, her cheeks glowing. “I was named after her.”

Zaire left Xavier’s arms to go to Martel, her hands shaking as she looked at the mage girl. Xavier knew she could see her power; it was hard to miss since it shone from every pore in her body. Zaire reached out and hesitated, but Martel moved instead to embrace her, Zaire returning the embrace. Xavier went to her as the two parted, Xavier touching Zaire gently on the shoulder.

“This is Lycus, Castor, Felix, Nike, Marcus, Jove, Xenia, Rufus, Hector, Alex, Cyrus, and Melissa,” Xavier said. “They are the only survivors from one of the lost ships.”

“How?” Zaire said stunned.

“It’s a long story,” Xavier said. “Let’s get your clothes dried and have something to eat while we talk.”

Martel helped dry everyone’s clothes and two tables were pulled together so they could all sit. Benny appeared with another tray of food and some ale. The room settled down again as they ate, Xavier sitting close to Zaire as she ate. He could hardly believe she was alive, part of him afraid this was some cruel dream. He watched her eat as if expecting her to suddenly disappear again. She looked up and noticed him staring, a blush spreading over her cheeks.

“How did you survive?” Xavier asked.

“I managed to cling to a spar of wood from the ship,” Zaire answered. “I held on for five days before a trading ship rescued me and took me to Hólmsted. Since I hadn’t been marked a slave I was free. What about you? I saw a shark…”

“That was Keone a Merrow, she saved me,” Xavier said realizing he had no right to complain if Zaire had sought another lover. He had lain with Keone multiple times, though they were only casual lovers.

“A mermaid saved you?” Zaire said amazed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, I’m traveling with dwarves.”

“Perhaps you two would like some time alone before we turn to discussions,” Darin said.

As much as Xavier wanted to take advantage of that offer he disliked the idea of making love in an inn with walls so thin they would be heard by everyone in the building. He glanced at Zaire and saw her blushing; she had reached the same conclusion.

“While the food here is good I’d rather not see the beds up close,” Xavier said. “But we should retire to our rooms to continue this conversation in private.”

He looked at the Elmerians specifically for this, none had signs of Legionnaires but Xavier didn’t want to risk it.

“Good idea,” Donar said. They finished eating and everyone tramped up to the room Xavier had rented since it was the larger. There were only three large beds, Martel casting a sigil to get rid of the bed bugs. There were only two chairs and a table so everyone sat in a big circle on the floor, the room was cold. Lycus lit the candles in the room, but it did little to dispel the cold.

“I guess I should start first,” Xavier said once they were gathered, Zaire sitting next to him leaning on him. He told the dwarves of his journey, letting a few questions pass but otherwise he went on uninterrupted. When he finished Donar shook his head.

“I am glad you turned the Griffins towards my kin but I can say the song never reached our borders,” Donar said. “Now let me go over our tale.”

Donar’s story was a lot more complicated and by the end Xavier felt his head ache with all the information. So Kal Ba’el was the Crippled One, the dragon king was reborn, and there was a potential war to the west.

“I suppose in the bigger picture we still don’t know the most important thing,” Xavier said. “Where is the song?”

“No, but we have one challenge done,” Donar said. “Finding you, and I think you are right that if we recover your lost memories we will learn where the song might be.”

“How will we do that exactly?” Xavier asked.

“I’ll explain later when we reach Alda,” Donar answered. “It takes time and a quiet place. Right now I think we should get some rest.”

Xavier looked around to see the children had all fallen asleep, the room now lit by candles as the sun had set. The storm still raged outside, the shutters rattling with the wind. Xavier sighed and they went about getting the children to bed, all of them filling the three beds in the room.

“You can have the use of our room Zaire,” Darin said to her trying to hand over the key.

“Thank you Darin but I think we’re fine,” Zaire answered quietly. “The walls are a bit thin here. I’ll stay here.”

Darin nodded; they could hear snores from the other rooms of the other patrons. The dwarves left, but Ronan stayed, sitting down in a corner.

“Aren’t you going with them?” Xavier asked crossly.

“I just thought I would be more comfortable here,” Ronan said. “Don’t mind me.”

“I do mind if you intend to seek one of the beds,” Xavier said darkly and Ronan looked up at him shocked.

“I assure you my tastes have never wandered that young even when I was the same age,” Ronan said seriously.

“It’s alright Xavier,” Zaire said and he looked at her. “He’s a good man.”

“Alright,” Xavier said, deciding Zaire must know him better than him.

“And I would clarify that me and Zaire have only been traveling companions,” Ronan added. “Nothing more, though I admit to a few flirtations as is my nature.”

Xavier saw Zaire blush and look at Ronan who seemed to understand her look.

“I’ve learned from my mistakes Lady Zaire,” Ronan said. “It seems I am to always play second flute.”

“Maybe not always Ronan,” Zaire said kindly. “Goodnight.”

Ronan nodded to them before pulling his wide brimmed hat down over his eyes. Xavier and Zaire took the other side of the room rolled in Zaire’s fur cloak, now dry thanks to Martel. Xavier held her against him just content in the feeling of her in his arms again. He held her, but he felt something lying between them unspoken. She had been honest now it was his turn.

“Zaire?” Xavier said and she shifted next to him looking up at him. “I know you didn’t take a lover but I did. Keone and I shared a few times together, though Merrow women seem to do that with whatever is handy. I was just one of her lovers, and to me she was just someone to try and forget my pain in losing you. She… she said I said your name when I made love to her.”

She was dead quiet, Xavier afraid he had just ruined everything. Then he heard her sob and the sound sent a knife to his heart. He held her tighter feeling guilty.

“I’m sorry Zaire,” he whispered. “I should have loved you forever even after I thought you were dead.”

“No,” she gasped holding onto him hard. “No Xavier I want you to be happy and not to wallow in misery after me. Please… I’m just as guilty as you, not with Ronan but I got drunk on Isra’s Night and slept with one of the Princes of Nyrgard. It was the only time, but I understand how you felt Xavier seeking comfort in another person. I couldn’t bear to go to Dirk again because he’s an ass, but if you found comfort in Keone I don’t blame you for it.”

Xavier held her feeling his own guilty tears rise up and held her closer, nuzzling against her neck. He didn’t care about her having slept with another man, he was just glad to have her again.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said in her ear. “I’ll forgive you if you forgive me, and we’ll forgive ourselves.”

“Alright,” Zaire said softly and she turned to kiss him. Xavier started to move his hands along her back, Zaire’s arms slipping over his shoulders pulling him closer. Ronan cleared his throat across the room and they stopped, Xavier turning to him to see him glaring from under the brim of his hat. Xavier sighed and they settled back to go to sleep.

“Xavier?” Zaire said softly and he mumbled in response, close to sleep now. “I think I’d like to meet Keone.”

“You’d like her, but I think she might take a liking to you too much,” Xavier said warningly. “I wouldn’t put it past her to suggest a threesome.”

Zaire chuckled and nuzzled close to him, Xavier falling asleep easily in her arms.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hi love! with so much speculation about Jon Snow taking the Iron Throne, what are the steps he would need to take in order to be King? Is there any scenario where it would be possible without Daenery's support? Thanks!

anon asked:

What are your thoughts on people claiming Jon has a better claim to the iron throne than Dany? If this was a war of succession, then he would… but it’s a war of conquest. Whoever wins gets the crown, not whoever deserves it more.

Answering both of you at once since they’re variations of the same question. First of all, Jon only has a better claim to the throne than Dany if he is legitimate,* if Rhaegar and Lyanna were married and if it was a legitimate marriage. Despite what the show did, neither of those two things may be true in the books. And I presume both of you know better than to ask me about the show.

*This is not counting the facts of Aerys’s disinheritance of Rhaegar’s children in favor of Viserys (who later claimed Dany as his heir), or the whole issue of the precedent against women having any claim to the throne, which Elio says may not apply anyway. Succession is complicated.

Nevertheless, whether Jon has a better claim to the throne or not… well… second of all, Jon has to want the Iron Throne, has to want to rule Westeros, and has to want to fight for it. I genuinely can’t think of any reason the Jon we know would want any of that. (The Jon that comes back from the dead may not exactly be the Jon we know, though.) I have a very hard time thinking of Jon, raised as a Stark (bastard), believing Ned was his father, desperately wanting to be thought of as a true Stark, to deny that part of himself so much that he rejects it entirely in favor of fighting to be a Targaryen instead. Honestly, the only reason I could see him (the Jon I know at least) doing that would be altruistically: to step out of the way of his Stark siblings/cousins’ right to Winterfell, or because he’s acclaimed (the people really want him to be king and he can’t deny them), or because he genuinely thinks he’s the only/best one left to lead Westeros’s rebuilding after the apocalypse. (But then I don’t always expect him to survive the apocalypse; and if he does I figure he’ll be a co-ruler anyway.)

So. If Jon did want to take the Iron Throne as sole ruler (or king with a mere queen consort rather than co-regent), and if he were looking to be acclaimed by those invested in the continuity of the Targaryen dynasty (as opposed to just right of conquest, by which anyone can grab anything really if they beat up everybody else trying for it), what would he need to do?

He would need to prove his legitimacy. Documents (of marriage, of annulment if applicable), witnesses. (Visions of the past are probably not legally admissible.)

He would need support, those lords who would be acclaiming him. Probably a good majority of the Great Lords of Westeros. (The outcomes of the Great Councils were far more than a supermajority, apparently.) Robert was acclaimed by 3 Great Lords (Stark, Arryn, Tully; 4 if you count himself) as well as most of their bannermen at the Trident, and after the Trident by another (Greyjoy) and after the Sack by another (Lannister), and then 2 more (Tyrell, Martell) eventually submitted to him. Jon would need something similar, as would anyone trying to take the throne. Bend the knee, bitches.

In order to get this support, force of arms is really helpful to encourage the lords to kneel with their decisions. A dragon or three, say, a couple of armies.

Would Dany’s support be important? Well, her disagreement could really fuck things up, so heck yeah she’s important. (A scenario where she would not be important is if she’s died or for some reason never comes to Westeros.**) Consider Young Griff/Aegon, and the question of whether he’s legitimate or a pretender – he was supposed to go to Dany to tell her who he was and ask her to marry him, since she was a well-known true and legitimate Targaryen, and her support and approval of his status would win over those doubting lords of Westeros. And her dragons, too. (Note Tyrion convinced Aegon that he could conquer first and win Dany later with his conquering as a bride-gift, but we’ll have to see how that works out.) If Dany is giving a dragon to Jon, as well as an army or two, that is also extremely helpful support.

After all this, Jon would need to be anointed by the High Septon to really get all the people on his side. Sure, he could crown himself (as Aegon the Conqueror initially did), but the Faith of the Seven is still the most popular religion in Westeros and Aegon counted his rule from the day the High Septon crowned and anointed him in Oldtown. Difficulties: Jon worships the Old Gods only; Jon may be resurrected by R’hllor, a foreign god the Faith considers demonic (Jon coming back from the dead at all is kinda creepy lbr); and of course the above questions of legitimacy etc. Another major difficulty: between KL possibly blowing up and Oldtown also likely coming under sorcerous fire, will there even be a High Septon after the apocalypse? Well, if needs be, anointing can wait.

**Another potential scenario where Dany’s support is not important would be a wild AU where Ned Stark doesn’t promise Lyanna to keep Jon safe and secret and unknowing of his heritage, and instead ambitiously makes himself a kingmaker. This would require Ned to be a completely different person as well as his relationship with Robert to be completely different (never any friendship to begin with? a break caused by the Sack that is never healed?), as well as a completely different history that’s not ASOIAF, but presumably neither Dany or Viserys (young, exiled, without friends) would be that necessary for Ned to make Jon a king should he so wish.

I think that covers most of the issues and required steps. Any further questions, just let me know.

[phosphorescent-naidheachd]

 @willayork replied to your post:

But, but where is the fic?

To quote my tags on the post:

#yes yes i know the likelihood of the mountain leaving elia alive is almost nonexistent... shhhh #also i'm probably never going to write this fic b/c if i follow the concept through to its natural conclusion #then the fic will either end in a targ restoration (likely w/ viserys on the throne) or in tragedy... or both #and frankly neither of those endings appeals to me #tho i suppose the inevitable fight against the Others could change the former? #drat it if i don't love the premise of this fic despite all of that

;-)

I have too many far-too-slowly-moving WIPs at the moment to start a new one anyways. That said, if I were to write such a fic, it would include:

Elia reminiscing about Rhaella, who also Deserved Better(TM) from canon

Elia finding a way to make bb!Viserys and bb!Daenerys’ childhood less traumatic. IDK if she’d be able to take them in herself---if she did that, King Robert would assume that the Martells planned on eventually launching a war to reseat a Targaryen on the Iron Throne (and LBH, he probably wouldn’t be wrong in his fears) and react very poorly to such a thing---but she’d subtly send some funds with a few trusted, discreet minor nobles and/or servants in their direction. So if/when Willem Darry died, at least the kids wouldn’t be out on the streets begging.

Elia getting to be bitter about her husband’s shitty choices

Elia getting to be bitter about Lyanna while also pitying her

Elia interacting with her siblings!!!

Elia interacting with her nieces, nephews, and assorted other family members!!!

Elia reminiscing about her mother (who really deserves a canonical name, GRRM, just saying)

Elia thinking about Ashara and dealing with her tragic end

Elia reminiscing about her Uncle Lewyn and dealing with his death

Elia grieving and raging and feeling guilt about being unable to prevent her children’s brutal deaths

ALL the nightmares about Aerys and Gregor Clegane

Elia dealing with major depression and PTSD, and slowly and imperfectly going through the healing process

Elia having extremely tangled, ugly, complicated feelings about the Rebellion and its main players

Lots of internal and external Dornish politics

Elia reuniting with old friends and making new ones

Elia eventually getting to fall in love with someone who appreciates her and loves her back

The consequences of Tywin’s brutalities coming home to roost a lot sooner than they did in canon

Anything further than that, I can’t say, partially because we know so little about canon!Elia. For instance, we know that Elia was “kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit”, but that doesn’t tell us if she would want revenge against the Lannister-Baratheon-Stark-Tully contingent or if she would she lean more towards Ellaria Sand’s perspective on matters. Revenge aside, if given the (admittedly unfair) choice between true justice and peace, which would she pick? It feels reductive to place her solely in either category, and I doubt her desires would remain static over the years; either way, that’s something that I’d have to decide and develop over the course of the story. 

Similarly, while Elia living would change some things, there are many others that it absolutely wouldn’t change. The disaster-in-the-making that is the Baratheon-Lannister marriage and the Lannister twincest are two such events that wouldn’t be changed. Ditto to Littlefinger’s ambition, obsession with Catelyn,  and deep-rooted desire for revenge against Hoster Tully and the Starks. Ditto to the oncoming threat of the Others. And so on. A lot of the smaller stuff, though, is open to debate, especially once the Ripple Effect takes hold. So that’s something I’d have to sketch out before starting the story, and continue to develop as the story---and thus the changes---gradually grew larger.

And---well, you get the picture lol.

[eyesaremosaics]

Feminist film recommendations?

Hmm interesting question anon. I will list some of my personal favorites (in no particular order) hopefully you enjoy them.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I felt like there was fire in my veins walking out of the cinema. Not only is Charlize Theron’s Furiosa a total badass, but the best thing is that it’s not just her. To have such a range of women portrayed equally and beautifully was so uplifting. Women caring for each other, lifting each other and fighting hard for what is right. We need more of that, both in Hollywood and in life.

2. The color purple (1985)

Read this book in high school, about a sisterhood of women, all standing together against the racism and sexism that they face and somehow coming out on top. It’s an inspiring story of women coming together in the face of adversity.

3. Gone With the Wind (1939)

Scarlett was the most coveted female film role of all time. Despite the films obvious flaws as a result of the time period in which it was made, overall this is a feminist parable. Scarlett is above all else–a survivor. She never gives up, digs her heels in, rolls up her sleeves and does it. She faces adversity with admirable courage. Despite the fact that she is a terribly flawed human being, you can relate to her. She sets her mind to something and she does it, whether it’s dragging her family out of poverty or eating as much BBQ food as she damn well likes. Her flaws make her human, which adds richness to the overall story. Scarlett has inspired me to persevere at the darkest of times. When all hope seems lost, “tomorrow is another day.”

4. Erin Brockovich (2000)

I love Julia Roberts, and this movie stands out as one of her best in my opinion. A single mother, fallen on hard times, but somehow holding everything together. Making the best of a bad situation, an eternal realist. Portraying a woman as much more than she appears. She uncovers some dark secrets (chemicals leaked into the sewer systems) which led an entire community to develop terminal illness. She works tirelessly to expose those responsible and find justice for those who can’t help themselves. My favorite line is when this bitchy secretary says: “maybe we got off on the wrong foot here.”“Yeah lady because that’s all you got, two wrong feet and fucking ugly shoes.” Bahahaha

5. Suffragette (2015)

Tells the story of the women’s right movement at the turn of the last century. It taught me to stand up for myself, and for women everywhere. Very proud to have that as a part of our history. Incredibly grateful to all the women who fought tirelessly, endured persecution, humiliation, incarceration to ensure my right to vote.

6. Pocahontas (1995)

Pocahontas is VERY loosely based on the true story. Disney took a lot of liberties here which mask the horror of early American history and its impact on the native Americans. HOWEVER, what I like about her characterization in this film… Is that she was strong, rebellious, bold, adventurous, and wise. She went wherever the wind took her, a true free spirit. She was graceful, and kind in ways other Disney princesses were not. The purity of her heart and the message she had to bring, stopped a war. She is a warrior, but not one that fights with weapons, she fights with love. In the end she chose herself and her duty to her people over a man. I wanted to be just like her when I was a little girl watching this in the theater, and she still inspires me today, nearly 20 years later.

7. Fried green tomatoes (1992)

I watched this film when I was in high school, with low expectations and was very surprised to discover how moved I was. A story of two women, finding empowerment within oneself. The main character listens to a story from an elderly woman and learns how to love herself. I believe it’s important to encourage other women and learn from each other.

8. Obvious child (2014)

Jenny Slate’s character has an abortion after a one night stand with a guy she actually really likes. However, she knows she isn’t prepared for it and chooses to terminate the pregnancy. There’s great friendship and family in the film and it really helps to destigmatise abortion.

9. Wild (2014)

The book is arguably better, but the film is worth watching. A woman goes out and hikes one of the worlds longest trails, on a mission to find herself and to prove that she can finish what she starts. Finding herself on the elements, and getting clarity. Very freeing and inspiring.

10. Kill Bill 1 & 2 (2003)

Uma Thurman is a boss, and everyone knows it. She is so vice tally connected to her inner life as an actress, always enjoy watching her. These films are what she is most known for nowadays, and for good reason. It’s a story of revenge. A woman is almost murdered by the man she loved, pregnant with his child. Wakes up in a hospital, having been in a coma for years. Suffered all kinds of indignities, she willed herself to walk again. Dragged herself by her fingernails until she could rise up, strengthen her skills as a warrior, and set out to settle old scores. She takes each person down one by one, yet you still find the humanity behind each character and the reasons why they did what they did and became who they were. It’s about survival, perseverance, and ultimately in the end–forgiveness. Leaving the past behind, to start over again.

11. She’s beautiful when she’s angry (2014)

It’s a documentary about the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, with interviews with many of the women who were part of it. Sure, it makes you angry to see injustice, but it’s also highly uplifting to see what these women did, and how it paved the way for equality forty to fifty years later. These women were, and still are, amazing figures who haven’t stopped fighting.

12. How to make an American quilt

A group of older women reflecting on their lives around a quilting table. Each of their stories are so inspiring, and the way they all come together to heal from their traumas is very powerful. Winona Ryder’s character (Finn) is experiencing a late twenties crisis of identity, and is unsure about wether or not to get married to her long term fiancée. Listening to the lives of all these women helps bring perspective and clarity to her. Life is never black and white, life is like a quilt. You build as you go along.

13. Frida

This Selma Hayek-fronted, Academy Award-winning biopic of the feminist icon portrays the artist in a whole new light. It’s amazing to watch the story of any incredible historic figure succeed against the odds, but double if said figure is also a woman and shot so beautifully by Julie Taymor.

14. The hours (2002)

This film follows three women as their lives weave in and around the narrative of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The multi-generational movie shows how people are connected through time by similar angst, anxieties, and personal struggles.

15. The Stepford wives (1975)

What happens to women when things are too perfect? The answer might make their husbands happy, but the truth behind what is happening in this ideal-seeming suburb is nothing short of horrifying.

16. Miss Representation (2011)

A documentary on the way women are treated and portrayed in the media, this film broke open the truth behind the images women and young girls are force fed on a daily basis. Start your watching here, if you can, and then continue on to these other films to see how much has and hasn’t changed.

17. North Country (2005)

A fictionalized account of the first majorly successful sexual harassment case in the United States, this film follows the female miners who fought for their right to work without suffering the abuse their male coworkers heaped on them because of their gender.

18. The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel

New Argentine Cinema figure Lucrecia Martel draws connections to the country’s dark political/class struggles, transposing its “disappeared” from the mid-to-late ‘70s into a sedate, challenging story about a woman’s fractured state following a fatal accident and its ensuing cover-up.

18. Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki

A thread of feminism weaves itself through the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Perhaps his most mature film, Princess Mononoke features a memorable and tenacious heroine, San, who subverts feminine stereotypes and is written without the fanciful quirks commonly found in animation. She is serious and single minded. Grounded to the earth, living in the moment. She is totally present, and pure. Even her rage comes from a pure unadulterated place. Wolf-goddess character Moro deserves attention as an unlikely mother figure that is fierce and, well, totally pissed off (you would be too if people were destroying your home), but also wise and nurturing. Fighting for what’s right, against impossible odds. Being humbled by nature, the ultimate female reclamation. So many layers in this film.

19. Dogfight, Nancy Savoca

A rare film set during the Vietnam War and told from the perspective of a woman, Nancy Savoca’s Dogfight reveals a different kind of cruelty people inflict upon one another, off the battlefield — in this case, a group of misogynistic Marines using women in a contest of looks. Lili Taylor’s peace-loving Rose, who becomes one of the targets in this game, soon realizes she’s being courted by River Phoenix’s Eddie for the wrong reasons — though his guilt and seemingly genuine interest in Rose is apparent. Rose confronts Eddie about the game, defending the honor of all women involved, which winds up bringing them closer together.

20. Alien, Ridley Scott

She’s not a sidekick, arm candy, or a damsel to be rescued. She isn’t a fantasy version of a woman. The character is strong enough to survive multiple screenwriters. She was lucky enough to be played by Sigourney Weaver,” said Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America President John Scalzi of Ellen Ripley from 1979’s Alien. Defying genre cinema’s gender clichés (she is gender neutral, really) as the clear-minded, intelligent, and capable officer of the ship Nostromo, Ripley is more resourceful than the men who employ her and steps in to take over when all hell breaks loose.

21. Orlando, Sally Potter

Our own Judy Berman recently highlighted Tilda Swinton’s performance in Potter’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s satirical text that explores gender and artistic subjectivity, a project that was ambitious in both form and content:

“Although it’s far more straightforward a narrative than most of her work, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando still presents one major challenge for the big screen: its protagonist is a nobleman in Elizabethan England who lives a life that spans centuries, and is suddenly transformed into a woman midway through it. Tilda Swinton may be the only (allegedly) human actor equipped to play the role of such a regal, mysterious androgyne, and her performance in this adaptation — also a breakthrough for director Sally Potter — became her signature.”

22. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy

Celebrated for its vivid milieu, Jacques Demy’s sensitively characterized film is a superior look at an independent woman (Catherine Deneuve) in a romantic narrative who makes difficult choices about marriage, children, and survival that sometimes leave her alone — but she is never lonely because of that.

23. Daisies, Vera Chytilová

The young women in Vera Chytilová’s Czech New Wave farce “construct fluid identities for themselves, keenly aware of their sexuality, toying with the men who pursue them. It’s an exhilarating, surreal, anarchic experiment, framed by the turbulent 1960s.

24. Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash

Julie Dash directed the first feature film by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States in 1991 — a stunningly captured look at three generations of Gullah women off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia in 1902.

25. Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren

The bar for avant-garde female filmmaking, born from personal experiences and anxieties. Maya Deren’s 1943 experimental classic builds its interior female perspective and constructs of selfhood through dreamlike imagery.

26. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Theodor Dreyer

Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s crowning achievement, released in 1928, that still painfully echoes contemporary cases of female oppression — the film’s silent context taking on an unintentional resonance:

“Carl Dreyer’s last silent, the greatest of all Joan of Arc films… . Joan is played by stage actress Renee Falconetti, and though hers is one of the key performances in the history of movies, she never made another film. (Antonin Artaud also appears in a memorable cameo.) Dreyer’s radical approach to constructing space and the slow intensity of his mobile style make this ‘difficult’ in the sense that, like all the greatest films, it reinvents the world from the ground up. It’s also painful in a way that all Dreyer’s tragedies are, but it will continue to live long after most commercial movies have vanished from memory.”

[swordknown]

@epeolxtry // discord thread // arthur & elia reunite

The petals crushed in her hand, darkened by bruises caused from how rough she'd been with such a delicate thing. And still Elia didn't break out of her trance, staring ahead, hearing his voice just down the hall. It hurt her in more ways than she could say and it was because despite any anger and betrayal swimming in her heart - she still loved him deeply. The flower falls to the ground the very moment he stepped out into the courtyard. And Elia couldn't be sure what he was expecting but if the look on his face was any indication it was not to see her alive. The world believed her and her babies dead, it would stay that way, but she had begged Doran to summon Arthur here and to let her speak to him before sentencing him for his wrongdoings. Elia stood in one soft movement, hindered only by the state of her leg. It had been broken during the Sack, that putrid mountain of a man letting all of his weight press down through his hands as he parted her thighs and... Elia looked away, like she could shake the memory free. "You look as if you've seen a ghost." She murmured eventually, lips feeling tight in a way she hadn't gotten used to - she'd never been particularly vain but the scars upon her face were a sore point, yet another physical reminder of what she had endured. Survived.

Arthur hadn’t know what to expect when summoned to Dorne. It certainly wasn’t a rather vicious looking satisfaction on Oberyn Martell’s face. In truth, he expected punishment from the Martells, for his horrible, horrible failures. Yet, soon it became obvious that this was his punishment. Elia Martell, alive. He took one stumbling step forward, before falling to a knee, head bowed low, a gasped, “Elia,” falling from his lips. Despite all her scars (and oh, how he burned with anguish deep inside to see such obvious signs of her pain, of her suffering,) there was no mistaking who stood before him. And with the realization, his head snapped up to look to her once more, body trembling with fear? Relief? Some overflow of emotions that he couldn’t name, yet he had to know, “...Rhaenys? Aegon?”

At one point (and not long ago at all) Elia would have grinned from ear to ear over the sight of him, her heart would slam in her chest and she would feel at ease just by his proximity. Now? There were still those traitorous feelings of love that would never leave but there was also bitter anger and disappointment. Elia had always felt safe with him close, and he hadn't been there when she needed him most. He'd been at that tower guarding Rhaegar's lover. "Do you care?" She asked, it was cruel but looking at him reminded her of all the hot rage she felt over his abandonment of her. Of their daughter. It was only by the grace of the gods that Oberyn had managed to get her children free before they were taken by Tywin's men, Elia had been the distraction as he stole them away to some place safe and she had paid dearly. In this lifetime she may never be able to move on from the things that happened to her.

"Elia, please." Arthur begged, for he had to know. It was a miracle to see her standing here, but all this bittersweetness could turn to pure sweetness if she just told him that their girl lived. "Of course I care..." Yet, he know why she asked. He hadn't been there to protect her, to protect their daughter and Aegon. He'd followed Rhaegar, had protected Rhaegar's mistress and her bastard babe instead. It was not a choice he'd made lightly, and he never would have made it if he knew where it all would have led. "Please Elia. Gods, I don't...I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He didn't know what to say. And he certainly didn't deserve her forgiveness, not after all the mistakes he had made. "Just tell me that she's okay." he begged, for that was what truly mattered to him, at this moment. The knowledge that despite his own errors, his sweet little star might have somehow lived. Once, he might have been able to read the answer from her face, but now all he saw was her anger, her rage, her hurt. And gods, if he didn't feel ashamed when he looked into her eyes. Moreso than he'd already been experiencing, for here she was, returned from the dead to punish him for his fool choices. And he'd deserve it.

Elia didn't have it in her to be cruel and she certainly couldn't stand here and watch the agony on his face as he tried to work out whether or not their daughter had lived. "Both my children are fine." Elia stated, putting him out of his misery whilst cutting him with the word choice. Her children. Nobody else's. Rhaegar and Arthur had both abandoned her and the babes they had fathered. They didn't deserve her sweet angels. "Though Rhaenys not without her scars." She had been injured and she was old enough to remember and process the trauma. Her little girl had not slept a night through since, nightmares plaguing her and having her screaming in the middle of the night. She had seen too much, witnessed a sliver of what her mother had gone through before she was whisked away. "She's strong though. A trait I had thought she'd gotten from her father. Clearly not."

Alive. They were both alive. Aegon too. The sweet relief her words brought him were made bittersweet by her anger. Her children. While Rhaenys had never been his in the eyes of the realm, she had always been his in the eyes of he and Elia. “I never doubted her strength came from you.” He offered with a shrug, miserable despite all that was salvaged. Elia and her children lived, but they might have been lost to him forever. And it would be a well deserved exile from their lives. Pushing himself off his knees, he stood once again. “I deserve your wrath. I made the wrong decision.” He could explain how Rhaegar didn’t tell him where they were going, in the beginning. But it would be an empty excuse. Nothing besides the misplaced sense of loyalty he had towards the Silver Prince and his duty as a white cloak had kept him from her side. He’d chosen duty over her safety. And he didn’t know how he could gain her forgiveness when, in truth, he knew he didn’t deserve it. “I don’t know what I could say to you Elia.” He reached towards her, but let his hand drop before touching her, “I can apologize every day for the rest of my life and it will never be enough. You have every right to force me from your presence or exile me from Dorne or have my head. And I’ll accept whatever you decide.”December 29, 2017

How she wished in that moment that she was determined and cruel enough to exile or execute him. One word and Doran would do it glad, the only ones more furious than she had been had been her brothers. "Doran wants you exiled from Dorne, he wants to send you to the wall." They didn't meddle much with the North but he wanted Arthur to safer and what better place? "Oberyn wants you six feet under. I'd keep an eye on my food were I you." Of course Oberyn would do no such thing without Elia's go ahead, but why not add some paranoia to what Arthur was feeling? Gods know he deserved it. "I do not know what I want to do with you yet." He was the love of her life, her soulmate, but looking at him now only broke her heart.

“You should listen to your brothers.” Arthur suggested wryly, though the expression on his face showed no jest. “I betrayed you. I left you to die. You would have died.” And he could not forgive himself for that. “I even failed what I set out to achieve. Rhaegar is dead. His mistress is dead. I simply cannot do anything right.” Arthur’s eyes glistened with tears as he leaned towards her, “But the fact that you’re alive, that you’re safe? That Rhaenys and Aegon live? That is all that matters to me. Even if you never trust me again, I’d rather have you alive and hating me, then dead.” Gods, she’s alive. It still hasn’t fully registered. He took a moment to just stare at her, breath her in. She was scarred, injured, but it didn’t matter. Absentmindedly, a hand reaches out to cup her face, thumb running over a cheekbone, a motion he’d done a thousand times before, whenever he admired her and her beauty.

Whatever anger was inside of her was cracking under his words, crumbling beneath his touch. Her expression wavered, very nearly reverting to that girl he had wooed without intending to, that he had kissed beneath the stars of his home and that he had made love to, desperate and aching as they said goodbye. Elia wanted to break, to hold him and forgive him. But gods, she would not let herself. "Don't. Don't you dare stand there and make me pity you." And she flinched from his touch, not wanting him to touch the scars that marred her beautiful face and stir feelings buried deep beneath her anguish. "I may not be dead. But there are worse things." Those men had taken her body, they'd marked her flesh in ways that would never heal, had whispered the most vile things as they violated her. Elia would never be the same again, not when she avoided sleeping of a night (for Rhaenys had taken up space in her bed and she didn't wish to frightened the child) and the daytime kips she took were always interrupted by her own screams of terror.

Anguish broke across his features as she flinched away from him, but he smothered it, forced it behind his relatively stoic mask. He didn’t want her to pity him, for he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t feel this grief, this pain for his own suffering, but for hers. He’d heard rumors of what had been done, but the proof stood before him. “You’re alive.” He repeated, “You survived. And you did it without me, without Rhaegar, without anyone but yourself. I’ve always said you’re far stronger than anyone thinks and this is the proof. It’s not a proof I ever wished to be given, but here it is nonetheless. You don’t need me. I know this. You’ll survive, you’ll keep your children safe, even if those meant to protect you are off being fools. So, tell me what you would have me do. If you want me gone, fine. If you want me here, then I’ll do it all again. I’ll earn your trust again. I’ll even try and earn your love again, though gods know I don’t deserve it. Tell me what you want, Elia, and I will do everything in my power to make it so.” For that was all he could offer her, everything. Anything she desired of him. He would not make the same mistake again. If she didn’t order him away, he had no intention of leaving her side, damn propriety, damn what others thought, damn duty.

Elia's at a loss of words and she hates that, the past months had been thinking of nothing than what she would say to him, the things she would tell about how far the noble knight had fallen, how he brought shame to their country and broke vows he had taken long before the ones made to speak out loud in Kings Landing. Elia wanted to tell him she hated him. And yet she couldn't. Stuck before the words even left her throat. "I loved you." She whispered, voice cracking over the lie. It wasn't last tense, she still loved him. "I asked you to take me away, remember? Asked you if you loved me enough to do it? And you refused. You left me there in a pit of lions." He may not have known that would happen, but he knew she wasn't loved among those with power in the Capitol, that she was alone, that she was miserable. "You chose him." Honour and duty over love. "Why should I bring you back to my side now?" There was no keeping the tears at bay and despite standing as tall and strong as she could, her voice trembled and tears streaked down her cheeks. "When you couldn't even protect me before? When you wouldn't."

Arthur forces his eyes closed, refuses to let her see the pain her words caused him. Loved. Yes, he supposed that made sense. Who would love the one who abandoned them? “You shouldn’t.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, but it doesn’t help the watery quality his voice has suddenly picked up. “I love you. I love you and I had my duty. I swore to obey Aerys, to obey Rhaegar. To give counsel when it was requested and stay silent when it wasn’t.” His eyes flicker open to stare at her, “I swore to marry no woman and father no child. What a farce...I broke those vows long ago. For I am yours and once, you were mine. And from there, Rhaenys. I clung to this notion of duty and honor when I’d forsaken my duty and shown my dishonor long ago.” He flinches as he recognizes the wet trails that begin to slide down his face are tears, finally overflowing from his eyes. “You shouldn’t.” He repeated, “I could not keep a white cloak’s vow, and I could not keep my vow to you! What sort of man does that make me? Most certainly not the one you want anywhere near you or your children. Have me sent to the Wall, as your brother wants, see if I can’t find a way to break those vows too.” He suggested with a laugh that sounded far more like a sob. Guilt was eating him up inside, for her suffering was plain to see in her scars, her distrust evident in her questions, and her grief obvious in her tears. He never wanted to make her cry.

Gods, his guilt and grief was obvious in his own eyes, in his words. Arthur had spent months thinking that they were dead. That his lover and his daughter had been murdered all alone in enemy country. He deserved that pain. Well, that's what she wanted to think. It was much harder to do so when face to face with the pain he felt in full display. "Why didn't you take me away, Arthur?" It was a question she'd asked herself so many times - if duty was so above love to him that he would choose Rhaegar (a weak willed man whom had given into her families lunacy in the end) or Aerys (a mad man burning his people alive). Noble and good Arthur Dayne had protected two of royal blood who had done nothing but hurt people and bring misery upon there people. While he left her.

It was a question he had asked himself many times over the last few months. And the answer was always the same. “King Rhaegar, thoughtful, noble, and handsome. Queen Elia, beautiful, kind, and gracious. It was like a story. Certainly, the first year of your marriage would have been difficult, with memories of us lingering around, but after that year? After you had his children? Many a noble woman fall in love with their husband. And you would love him, not the stoic white cloak. And you would be happy and safe in the Red Keep. You would one day be Queen. You wouldn’t spend your life running, spend your life living off scraps, off whatever gold I could make with a sword or you could make with a needle. What if your illness grew worse? There are no maesters in Essos. It would take time, but you would fall in love with your Silver Prince, have his children, be safe and happy.” Or so he had believed. What a silly fool he had been. He shouldn’t have taken her away before her marriage. Let them speak of the depravity of the Dornish, but make the slight a small one. If only. If, if, if. “I didn’t take you away because I thought things would get better for you, not worse.”

"How could you ever thinking I could love him when my heart belonged with you?" Elia had never wished her husband ill, had been fond of him and maybe even did love him a little (though not a fraction of the things she felt for Arthur) and he betrayed her just as badly. Her love for him died in Harrenhal and then was long gone as he muttered about needing a third head for his dragon while she was still half dead on the birthing bed. He was a weak and deluded man, something she saw in hindsight, blinded at the time by his soft, gentle nature. He would have been no great leader, no worthy king. Her husband was dead though, the throne no longer his to take. She would think of him as little as possible, to wonder about his final moments dying under Robert Baratheon's hammer only late at night when she was awake and watching over her little star. "I want to hate you, Arthur. I wish I could cast you away so easily." Looking at him as painful, it brought an ache to her injuries and reminded her of what he hadn't protected her from. And how she hated reliving that.

“Because, we were both a bit blinded, in the beginning. Rhaegar seemed a great man, when in reality he was just a great fool.” It hurt to say about his childhood friend, but his childhood friend had disappeared many years ago. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it. “Then, perhaps I should make this easier for you. Perhaps I should go.” It would be painful, but if it was what she wanted, but was too kindhearted, even now, to say, then he would not force his presence upon her. “I want to stay.” He admitted, wiping at his face, his eyes, clearing his throat, visibly cleaning himself up, “I want to stay more than anything, but I know I don’t have the right to make that decision. Only you can decide that. But you don’t have to now.” He pointed out, “I’ll stay in Sunspear, away from you, until you decide what is to be done with me.” He offered.

The thought of him gone made her panic the more she realised it could very well be a reality. Perhaps it was silly after he abandoned her, but Elia had spent years loving and feeling safe with him. Those things lingered. "You will be one of our soldiers." She said suddenly, knowing both Doran and Oberyn would complain about her choice but she didn't care. "You will watch over Rhaenys and Aegon, be their shadow. And if you ever abandon them I will kill you myself." That was a promise. One betrayal she felt she could recover from enough to give him this life. But another would be too much. "What we had will not be rekindled Arthur." Elia murmured, even as her heart protested. "You're a traitor of Dorne and of the Martell family. Keeping you around is a kindness. Rhaenys already lost one father, I won't strip her of another."December 31, 2017

"That is more than I ever would have hoped for, Princess." Arthur assured her, sliding into the formality despite how wrong it felt. Yet, he would do nothing to jeopardize his place here, not when she was giving him a chance to make amends and a chance to look over his daughter. "Thank you. I swear, that I will be the most loyal guard the young Prince and Princess could ever have." He would not fail either of them like he had their parents. He would make sure of it, this time around. "Thank you." he repeated, for he would never be able to say it enough.

It felt right keeping him here, no matter how her brothers objected. Elia had loved him a good half of her life, giving him up was not so easy. No matter how he had betrayed her. Thinking of that betrayal reminded her of the ordeal she had faced, the pain and horror. Suddenly she felt the anger rush out of her, the reminder of the injuries she sported and the way they marred her pretty face. Him looking at her like this, with scars on her face, seemed wrong. "Do not fail me again." She wanted him out, gone, so she could process this.

[thestarkalypse]

Drunkalypse S7 E2: 9 or so things

Episode 2 season 7, it happened, we’re here now, me with you, you with me, what a magical time in our lives.

Follow me on Twitter at @starkalypse that's where I drunk live tweet the show and I’m trying to get to a 1,000 followers….

I was editing this like “goddamn why the fuck am I cursing so much this week” and then I remembered that I was joined this week by an old friend, so stalwart and true, a friend that makes me deranged and so hype about life.

That’s right y’all I got all up in a bottle of Barefoot pink moscato!!!!!

Cursing like a sailor this week, prob appropriate with this pirate nonsense like idek 

1.

I usually don’t write that much about Dany scenes but fuck it, let’s dance:

Dany starts stepping to Varys like he should never ever have switched sides in his high risk career as a gossip mongerer. Bitch, nah.

She is getting all Trumptastic with this blind allegiance shit. Damn, girl, we all pick a different horse sometimes. Like when you have a horse and then you’re like “oh shit, that horse only runs sideways, he’s not really feeling this whole competition thing, also he’s crazy and murders Northern lords in the throneroom” you can’t hate someone for picking a different horse

More importantly, does she realize that almost every single person in her posse played for at least one other team, as recently as two episodes ago in the finale when flop witch Melly Sanders was still kicking it in the North before she got exiled by Jon Snow

It was like one of those conversations where you’re like “oh, shit got real” like it was Real Housewives: Westeros, but not like the ones on YouTube, like the actual ones where they flip fucking tables and pretend they got invited to the White House but goddamn it, Michaela, you did not get invited and everyone knows it!

Missandei is slaying with that translation of PtwP ohhhhhh shit WORG are you watching this, a not-white woman telling you about your book shit

Watch Dany’s face, is she not a little pressed that Jon is killing it in the North and everyone likes him

“Tell Jon Snow that his queen invites him to come to Dragonstone” girl bye and he is not bending shit unless it is his neck before he brings his head up and shakes out his majestic mane of curls

2. A TARGARYEN CANNOT BE TRUSTED

Jon, king of the north, has been invited all the way to Dragonstone, an area in which he has no allies or armies, by way of an invitation written by Tyrion, of whom neither he or Sansa can apparently verify the handwriting of and can’t be 100% sure wasn’t written under duress. And in the letter Dany straight up tells him he’s subject to her.

But Jon, being Jon, is going to walk into it totally blind. A queen with three dragons who will crush all of her opponents. He thinks it’s a great idea to go in person instead of sending an emissary. And honestly, I expect nothing less from him. 

HEY REMEMBER HOW CATELYN “HAD” TO GO TO KINGS LANDING IN PERSON AND NOTHING EVENTFUL HAPPENED ON THE JOURNEY 

Part of the reason he is going is because he and Davos literally just fucking figured out that dragons are fire machines lawdT

If you think about it, if anyone is going to persuade Dany to give them dragons and dragonglass it’s the owner of the most glorious hair in Planetos

I like how Jon is standing there in that scene with the northerners, wasting everyone’s time like he’s not going to do exactly what he wants to do…….Oh, Jon……….

Jon puts Sansa in charge, as it should have been the whole time tbh #QueenintheNorth

(Do you think Dany’s dragons will ~know he’s a Targ. Too bad they don’t have DNA and can’t do a Westerosi “Who’s the Father” because Maury in Westeros would be funny as fuck)

OF COURSE JON HAS HIS HAIR PULLED BACK WHEN HE MEETS DAENERYS IN THE PREVIEW WTF JON

3. Is Jon Snow going to have to choke a bitch?

GODDAMNIT LITTLEFINGER

GET THE FUCK OUT

NO1CURR

We all want Jon Snow to like us but you need to calm the fuck down, Petyr. You probably shouldn’t bring up the crush you have on his younger sister.

How exactly do you spell the way Littlefinger says Sansa

Sansa

Sahnsaaaa

Sonsahhh

Saaaahnza

I loved your mother, Saaaaansa

4.

Cersei’s on that propaganda shit. Stone cold messaging on Dany, she’s goes hard like Fox News.

Who is this Dick[on] Tarly character and how is he relevant

Is a dragon going to eat Cersei tho

Oh my god this Hobbit shit right here with the dragon bolts but lbr the GoT dragons will never be as sassy or fabulous as Smaug

5. Samwell Tarly, MD

WHERE IS THE YELLOW PIRATE SHIRT OMGGGGG

And then I noticed he fucking does have it but it’s dirty as fuck does Oldtown not have a single dry-cleaner

IF THE SHIRT IS LOST THEN WESTEROS IS DOOMED   

Sam tries an experimental technique on Jorah that’s mostly just really big tweezers pulling his flesh off. It’s like nightmare versions of those Proactive commercials that come on at 3 a.m. when you wake up from dozing off during SNL

Sam ships Jorah and Dany, wants to heal him so they can reunite

“I’m going to rip off your skin then give you some really great lotion” no Cerave can save that shit, Samwise Tarlgee

This is the weirdest fucking scene to have zero music to

6. THAT TRANSITION DOE

Hot Pie, true hero of Westeros, probably Azor Ahai, tells Arya that Jon is alive, and she has less emotional response than a Cylon, like a Number Six who doesn’t get out that much. 

She casually steals food in front of her meant for someone else like the very best of drunks

Hightails it the fuckkkkkk out of there when she hears about Jonno

Runs into Nymeria, asks her to join the adventure, Nymeria’s like “hard pass.”

7.

CLAPBACK FOR THE MYRCELLA POISONING I SAID GOTDAM

Fucked Ellaria’s shit up

8. AL GREEN UP IN THIS BITCH

Barack and Michelle get the fuck together

LEEEEEEEEEETS LETS GET TOGEEEETHEEEEER LOVING YOU WHEEEETHER (WHEEETHER) TIMES ARE GOOOD OR BAAAAAAAD HAPPYYYYY OR SAAAAAAD WHOA WHOA

If anyone on that show deserves some loving it’s Missandei

9. I would drunk text Euron

When I was drunk a few days ago I definitely offered to give the Euron actor a “tour xx” of DC if he ever came into town on Twitter, because I was drunk so the thirst was real. 

Fucking Euron

Captain Boomerang

I mean

Fuck

This Black Pearl shit HOW DID YOU BUILD THOSE FUCKING BOATS THOUGH

Goddamn fucking Greyjoy bath salts those offbrand motherfuckers throwing the Gr8est Armada Ever together in like 2 weeks

Stop fucking tweeting me how boss Euron is those are Oberyn Martell’s kids step the fuck off

I can’t

I can;t

Bye

Jesus fucking Christ

It’s like………..you could give them a mercy kill so we can quickly block any memories of them but even the way they go out is fucking lame

They’re not going to kill Tyene or Ellaria because- calling this- they’re going to drag them back to KL and Cersei is going to kill at least Tyene, if not Ellaria, boom.

Theon is swimming, may bump into Gendry rowing around

FRANKLY I CANNOT BE ASKED this week. Jon better not put up with Dany’s shit next Sunday

[nooneeverlookedforagirl]

Death’s Song

“What is he doing here?” Robert balls his hand into a fist and takes a menacing step forward. The once-prince wilts in his seat, the right side of his face bruised heavily, kept there by Robert’s sheer determination.

“I thought you said this would help,” he protests.

“It will. Robert, sit down.” Ned commands as he steps between them.

“With him?!”

“You forget yourself, Baratheon,” Rhaegar snaps, and Ned wants to strangle him again. “You wronged me as well.”

“According to Oberyn Martell, he wronged Elia. Not you.” Ned tells him, and Rhaegar’s flinch is less subtle this time, because he can’t die but he can hurt. They tell stories of the day that Oberyn arrived, woozy and still healing, and of how his sister had to pry him off of her husband-in-life.

Robert begins to laugh and Ned turns on him just as quickly, “you too.”

“You know-”

“Now, Robert, or I’ll tell Jon what you did with his niece!”

He sits, because Jon is like his father and he would be so disappointed, but he still scowls at Rhaegar. Ned will take what he can get. He placed himself in the seat between them, ensuring that they will have to go over the table or around him to reach each other.

“You cannot keep fighting. They are going to throw you out of the bar and then you won’t be able to see the TV anymore. Rhaegar, you want to see Jon and Daenerys, right? And Robert, you want to watch Cersei?”

“It isn’t fair,” Robert huffs. “He deserves it, Ned, you know he does. You hit him too!”

“He did, Robert. I hit him once, you attack him every time you see him. You pushed a girl over the bar last time, and stepped on a Tyrell the time before that!” This would be easier if Robert did not feel justified, or if Jon would set aside his declaration of neutrality and help. “They did not deserve to be hurt.”

“How are you not upset, Ned?” Robert demands, furious and seething every time he looks at Rhaegar and not Ned himself. “Lyanna was your sister, he kidnapped her-”

“I did not-”

“Yes you did!”

“No, I-”

“You shut your lying mouth you-” Ned grabs his arm and pushes him back into his seat. When he speaks he has to talk over Robert.

“I am not upset, because Lyanna can take care of herself.”

Robert appears to process that for a moment, while Rhaegar seems smug. “I told you, Barath-”

“Stop talking, or I will tell Elia - and Lyanna - that you keep calling Jon ‘Aegon.’” He shuts up. Ned has to wonder if he is being deliberately foolish or if heaven has somehow not managed to clear up the insanity. 

“What do you mean?” Robert asks, and Ned assumes that he means about Lyanna and not about Jon. He hopes not, at least. Robert had thrown a fit when he learned about Jon, and if Lyanna had not stopped him then Ned would have.

“She set him on fire, Robert, I think that’s punishment enough.”

Rhaegar winces at the memory again - because everyone seems to be angry at him, Ned can’t imagine why - but Robert stares at him like he’s lost his mind. That was the second story Ned had been told upon his arrival, how had Robert not- oh. Right. Cersei.

“I don’t understand,” Robert says.

Ned doubts he ever will, but launches into it anyway.

@foltosszalamandra this is all your fault.