#sansa was almost stolen a couple of times before | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-king-andthe-lionheart · 3 years ago

Text

The Fundamentals of Gendrya

So I just want to establish the possible foreshadowing Arya and Gendry have that hints at a possible romantic relationship in the future, as well as the romantic undertones present in their story. I’m not really going to focus on symbolism in this meta (although it will come up a couple of times in a minor way), as that will be a focus for future meta. This is only meant to establish the fundamental basics.

First I want to say that when I’m talking about the romantic possibility of Gendrya, I mean future Gendrya, as in once Arya is older. However I will posit and say that because we are viewing this in the world of Westeros (in a pseudo Medieval world that GRRM exaggerated and sensationalized from real Medieval sources as well as rumor) and because GRRM has established he has no problems with placing his younger characters in romantic or sexual situations (see Mercy TWOW) I think it would be remiss to think GRRM would not take Arya and Gendry here if that was his plan all along. After all, there is plenty of precedent.

This also leads me to remind everyone that Gendry is not an adult when he meets Arya, and the age gap between the two is one of the least egregious age gaps in the books as most of the age gaps are between adult men in their 20’s and 30’s with 12-16 year old girl’s. I think a lot of people think of the age gap as Arya being 9 the whole time and Gendry being 16, but this is in fact wrong. According to the timeline, Arya and Gendry meet at the beginning of 299 AC, right around Arya’s 10th birthday. In 299 AC Gendry was only 13/14 years old. He was born in 284 AC and is not the same age as Robb and Jon, like Ned surmises. Gendry is just big for his age, and it’s highly likely Gendry doesn’t even know how old he is. When Arya and Gendry separate in ASOS Arya is almost 11 while Gendry is 14/15 years old.

Regardless, this is fiction, and doesn’t reflect real world morals. So what I’m getting at is that if anyone disagrees with this meta because of their ages I suggest you don’t read any further.

Foreshadowing

Our first hint of foreshadowing happens in Arya’s very first chapter:

She frowned down at them with dismay and glanced over to where her sister Sansa sat among the other girls. Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. “Sansa's work is as pretty as she is,” Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. “She has such fine, delicate hands.” When Lady Catelyn had asked about Arya, the septa had sniffed. “Arya has the hands of a blacksmith.” - Arya I AGOT

This quote is later followed up with:

[...] “I ruined that gown Lady Smallwood gave me, and I don't sew so good.” She chewed her lip. “I don't sew very well, I mean. Septa Mordane used to say I had a blacksmith's hands.”

Gendry hooted. “Those soft little things,” he called out. “You couldn't even hold a hammer.” - Arya VII ASOS

In the same book Lem Lemoncloak says this to Gendry:

“You must be a lackwit, boy,” said Lem. “We're outlaws. Lowborn scum, most of us, except for his lordship. Don't think it'll be like Tom's fool songs neither. You won't be stealing no kisses from a princess, nor riding in no tourneys in stolen armor. You join us, you'll end with your neck in a noose, or your head mounted up above some castle gate.” - Arya VII ASOS

At this point Arya is indeed a princess, but Lem also makes an obvious reference (to the audience) to the Knight of the Laughing Tree, which I think we can safely say was Lyanna. The fact that Lyanna is Arya’s literary mirror, tells me we can connect Arya to Lem’s comment, not to mention the inclusion of “princess” just kind of seals the deal. We also know that Arya is the spitting image of Lyanna and Gendry the spitting image of Robert Baratheon. I think it’s worth noting also that after Acorn Hall, Lem takes it upon himself to make sure nothing untoward happens between Arya and Gendry (he thought Gendry was taking advantage of Arya after they wrestled) as he starts sleeping in between them, which is seen in Arya V ASOS when they are at The Peach. Lem saying “Don’t think it’ll be like Tom’s fool songs neither” is also interesting because at Acorn Hall we specifically get Tom singing a love song directed towards Arya and Gendry.

Speaking of Lyanna and Robert being reflections of Arya (in both appearance and personality) and Gendry (in appearance for the most part) this is said in Eddard I AGOT:

We were meant to rule together. If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done."

Now this quote may be referring to Sansa and Joffrey, but I do think it’s foreshadowing for Gendrya and this is just a misdirect. After all, Joffrey is not Robert Baratheon’s son by blood, but Gendry is, even though he is illegitimate. To me this also sounds like a promise. When you think about it, the story truly begins at the Tourney of Harrenhal with the events that broke the betrothal between Lyanna and Robert, so it would be very cyclical for the ending to do what the beginning could not, binding a Stark and a Baratheon together in marriage.

There are also several references about Arya marrying an apprentice/blacksmith:

“[...] Or if it is marriage and children you desire, tell me, and we shall find a husband for you. Some honest apprentice boy, a rich old man, a seafarer, whatever you desire.” - Arya II AFFC

We also have a comment made by Jaime:

“Not all,” said Jaime. “Lord Eddard's daughters live. One has just been wed. The other...” Brienne, where are you? Have you found her? “...if the gods are good, she'll forget she was a Stark. She'll wed some burly blacksmith or fat-faced innkeep, fill his house with children, and never need to fear that some knight might come along to smash their heads against a wall.” - Jaime I ADWD

Now I know what you are going to say, that Jaime is referring to Sansa possibly marrying a blacksmith or innkeep, but if it weren’t for Jaime’s thought’s in the middle towards Brienne, you’d never guess which Stark daughter he is referring to because Sansa was only just recently married as well. Also it’s Arya who is associated with a blacksmith (Gendry) and a fat-faced innkeep (Hot Pie). So while Jaime is referring to Sansa here I think we are meant to actually look at the reality behind this and reverse the foreshadowing back onto Arya, because it wasn’t Arya who was recently wed, that was Sansa. It’s also Arya who is legitimately trying to forget she was a Stark (Sansa isn’t trying to forget, she is only pretending to be Alayne to ensure her protection) and like I mentioned it’s Arya who had a blacksmith and future employee at an inn as companions for two novels. So I think it’s a foreshadowing switcheroo. And I think it’s also worth mentioning that while Jaime sent Brienne out to save Sansa, Brienne spends her whole journey almost exclusively hearing news and following leads about Arya.

There is also a reference in Brienne VII AFFC that makes mention that Arya may marry an apprentice boy:

Gendry was the closest thing to a man grown, but it was Willow shouting all the orders, as if she were a queen in her castle and the other children were no more than servants.

If she were highborn, command would come naturally to her, and deference to them. Brienne wondered whether Willow might be more than she appeared. The girl was too young and too plain to be Sansa Stark, but she was of the right age to be the younger sister, and even Lady Catelyn had said that Arya lacked her sister's beauty. Brown hair, brown eyes, skinny...could it be? Arya Stark's hair was brown, she recalled, but Brienne was not sure about the color of her eyes. Brown and brown, was that it? Could it be that she did not die at Saltpans after all?

“One day that little girl [Willow] will make some man a frightful wife,” Ser Hyle observed. “That poor 'prentice boy [Gendry], most like.”

Willow is very obviously a Arya stand-in which makes this specific quote about Arya and Gendry, not Willow and Gendry.

Arya IV ASOS has the strongest case for future romantic Gendrya. Not only does Gendry follow after Arya and invite her to look at the forge, Gendry opens up to her about his life right before he was uprooted, and does this:

Gendry reached out with the tongs as if to pinch her face, but Arya swatted them away.

Gendry is being playful and open with Arya during most of this scene in the forge, teasing her in a manner that verges on flirting, telling her a story about his past, laughing and having fun with Arya. And then this happens:

Gendry put the hammer down and looked at her. “You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”

“You don't. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. She stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him, and they rolled across the floor of the smithy. He was very strong, but she was quicker. Every time he tried to hold her still she wiggled free and punched him. Gendry only laughed at the blows, which made her mad. He finally caught both her wrists in one hand and started to tickle her with the other, so Arya slammed her knee between his legs, and wrenched free. Both of them were covered in dirt, and one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. “I bet I don't look so nice now,” she shouted.

Gendry compliments Arya’s looks and scent, only for Arya to think he’s teasing her about her appearance due to her intense insecurity when it comes to highborn conformation (Gendry’s laugh when he first saw her didn’t help matters in her insecurity even though Gendry most likely only laughed out of being startled at her transformation). This insecurity leads Arya into getting angry and starting a wrestling match with him. This wrestling scene also directly follows Jaime and Brienne’s very sexually charged sword fight, and could also be interpreted as foreshadowing a romantic and potentially sexual relationship in the future, like theirs did, when they are older.

Now I’m not saying that I think Gendrya is going to go NC-17 in the books, but I do think it’s likely to go PG-13 by the end of ADOS, considering we have precedent that GRRM has no qualms about writing these types of things as I mentioned above, and we know Arya is going to be 12 in TWOW and may be at least 14-15 when the series ends depending on how much GRRM can spread out the timeline in the next two books. But considering the amount of stuff that needs to happen, I think the next two books will span 2-3 years before the epilogue begins.

Then there is the love song GRRM specifically wrote for Arya. A song that has only appeared in one chapter, Arya’s chapter:

“My featherbed is deep and soft,

and there I'll lay you down,

I'll dress you all in yellow silk,

and on your head a crown.

For you shall be my lady love,

and I shall be your lord.

I'll always keep you warm and safe,

and guard you with my sword.

“And how she smiled and how she laughed,

the maiden of the tree.

She spun away and said to him,

no featherbed for me.

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,

and bind my hair with grass,

But you can be my forest love,

and me your forest lass.”

Now we know this song is about them because when Tom O’Sevens is singing it, he winks at Arya, and later Lady Smallwood specifically says to Arya “I have no gowns of leaves”. The song specifically mentions yellow – a Baratheon color – and depicts the free spirited “Maiden of the Tree” who wants love on her own terms, which sounds like what an older, flowered version of Arya would want if she fell in love.

Romantic Undertones

Arya’s Crush

As she passed the armory, Arya heard the ring of a hammer. A deep orange glow shone through the high windows. She climbed to the roof and peeked down. Gendry was beating out a breastplate. When he worked, nothing existed for him but metal, bellows, fire. The hammer was like part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he made. He's strong, she thought. As he took up the long-handled tongs to dip the breastplate into the quenching trough, Arya slithered through the window and leapt down to the floor beside him. - Arya IX ACOK

It’s very subtle but this paragraph tells us everything. Arya unintentionally reveals in this quote that she watches Gendry blacksmithing enough to know that the world falls away when he’s in his element. She watches the play of muscles in his back and notes how strong he is and even attaches poetic language to his work. Arya has a crush on Gendry. It’s not acknowledged and it’s likely she doesn’t understand it herself, but this seems to be the truth of it, especially with the way GRRM worded this. I don’t know how many times I’ve read a romance where the protagonist studies their love interest while watching the “play of muscles” in their back or their arms. It’s also interesting to note that Arya always mentions specifics about Gendry’s looks and notes details about him:

He blinked at her, startled. Strands of thick black hair, still wet from the bathhouse, fell across his deep blue eyes. "I'd hurt you." - Arya II ACOK

"It's me they want," Arya whispered back. His ear smelled of soap. "You be quiet." - Arya II ACOK

When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. - Arya VIII ACOK

"She's not alone." Gendry rode out from behind the cottage wall, and behind him Hot Pie, leading her horse. In his chainmail shirt with a sword in his hand, Gendry looked almost a man grown, and dangerous. Hot Pie looked like Hot Pie. - Arya II ASOS

Now most of these I’d normally chalk up to the author just being descriptive, but if that’s the case, why don’t we know more about Hot Pie’s looks, who Arya spent nearly a year with at the same time as Gendry? Why does she take special time out to describe Gendry so much? Honestly I think part of it is to keep reminding us that Gendry is a secret Baratheon bastard, but that doesn’t explain the first quote about Arya watching the “play of muscles” in his back and noting how strong he is. So I think it’s a combination of GRRM wanting to remind the audience that Gendry is a Baratheon and to also subtly show us that Arya has an innocent crush on him, but doesn’t know or acknowledge that this is the case out loud.

Their Mutual Jealousy

Starting after the events of Acorn Hall in Arya IV ASOS, it’s obvious that something shifts in Arya and Gendry’s relationship. One aspect is that Gendry can no longer ignore that Arya is indeed a highborn girl after seeing her for the first time dressed up as one. He knows what class differences will mean for their friendship. And another aspect, is that Gendry acknowledges that he may be romantically interested in Arya, or at least acknowledges the potential for those feelings to emerge in time. And because of this, combined with their class differences, Gendry knows that if he follows Arya to Riverrun where her mother and brother are, he would end up watching Arya grow into someone he could romantically love, only for her to be torn away from him due to an arranged marriage. Both of these aspects play a factor in why we see Gendry become more outwardly scathing towards highborns in the chapters following this and why his behavior seems to become one rife with jealousy.

In Arya V ASOS the Brotherhood Without Banners travel to The Peach and both of the above aspects I spoke of are present in this chapter:

"You don't even know what a brothel is."

"I do so," she insisted. "It's like an inn, with girls."

He was turning red again. "What are you doing here, then?" he demanded. "A brothel's no fit place for no bloody highborn lady, everybody knows that."

And when Gendry protects Arya from a pervert by saying that she’s his sister, this is what goes down:

"Why did you say that?" Arya hopped to her feet. "You're not my brother."

"That's right," he said angrily. "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high."

Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. "That's not the way I meant it."

"Yes it is." He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. "Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I'll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her."

Arya doesn’t really understand the intentions of the pervert, despite knowing of sex, and is confused on why Gendry would say that he’s her brother, but when she asks him, he takes it the wrong way since he is already so sensitive about their class differences at this point in their story. That last paragraph is what makes this exchange really interesting though. Why would Gendry say this, when it’s already made clear and established in this chapter that Gendry has no intentions of sleeping with any of the girls, even when it’s offered to him for free? He is very obviously lying to try to get a rise out of Arya and the only way this makes sense is if we put it under a romantic lens.

Then we have this:

Arya whirled and left him there. A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that's all he is. He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her.

Now considering Arya’s defense mechanism (the mechanism that has her calling things or people stupid when she’s hurt or feeling inadequate by them to try to make the pain and hurt not seem so severe) the fact that she calls Gendry a “stupid bullheaded bastard boy” and proclaims Gendry ringing the bells of any girl was “nothing to her” tells us that it matters to her and that she’s upset. This is further reiterated in Arya VIII ASOS:

Arya wished she had another crabapple to bounce off his face. "My father had honor," she said angrily. "And we weren't talking to you anyway. Why don't you go back to Stoney Sept and ring that girl's stupid bells?"

So here we have Arya mention this three chapters later, likely weeks if not months later. If Arya didn’t care about Gendry ringing “all the bells he wanted” then why is she still so hurt and jealous? She’s obviously been stewing about this for a while.

In this same chapter we also see gems from Gendry that clearly proclaim that he’s still plagued about his class differences to Arya. It also clearly shows that Gendry is jealous of Edric Dayne once Arya befriends him, especially since she befriended someone highborn, like her, who just so happens to be a boy who we know has nearly the same coloring as Rhaegar Targaryen, which evokes the history repeating motif that is present in Arya’s arc of the Rhaegar/Lyanna/Robert love triangle.

"You have a knife," Gendry suggested. "If your hair annoys you so much, shave your bloody head."

He doesn't like Ned. The squire seemed nice enough to Arya; maybe a little shy, but good-natured. She had always heard that Dornishmen were small and swarthy, with black hair and small black eyes, but Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple. And his hair was a pale blond, more ash than honey. - Arya VIII ASOS

And

"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall."

Behind them, Gendry groaned. "Lords and ladies," he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. Arya plucked a withered crabapple off a passing branch and whipped it at him, bouncing it off his thick bull head. "Ow," he said. "That hurt." He felt the skin above his eye. "What kind of lady throws crabapples at people?"

"The bad kind," said Arya, suddenly contrite.

Gendry continues to encapsulate “ours is the fury” during Arya’s whole exchange with Edric Dayne.

I do want to add that I know Gendry’s class issues have always been there, and it’s definitely been made even more apparent to him during the War of the Five Kings during his time in the wartorn Riverlands with Arya, so it’s not exactly that far-fetched that Gendry may become even more sensitive and/or bitter about it. However, this extremity of his behavior only happened after Acorn Hall where he saw Arya looking like the highborn girl she is. And while I do believe part of Gendry’s increase of bitterness about their class differences does have to do with potential romantic feelings, I also think it has to do with Gendry also coming to terms with the fact that Arya’s family is also directly responsible for the carnage they have seen and experienced (even though he doesn’t blame Arya, as she seems to be one of Gendry’s exceptions when it comes to his dislike of the nobility). If it weren’t for the blatant flirting on his behalf in the forge at Acorn Hall and the jealousy, I would honestly chalk it up to Gendry trying to reconcile his own trauma and anger regarding highborns, including Arya’s family’s sins, but alas, that is not completely the case.

Post Separation

When Arya is kidnapped by the Hound and witnesses the Red Wedding, Arya contemplates where she may go and this crosses her thoughts in a very romanticized light:

She could stay with Hot Pie, or maybe Lord Beric would find her there. Anguy would teach her to use a bow, and she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs.

But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream. - Arya XII ASOS

The fact that Arya follows this thought up with “that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream” tells us specifically what type of fantasy this is. Arya isn’t fantasizing about an adventure, she’s fantasizing about love and romance, considering those are the types of flights of fancy Sansa always loses herself in. Now Arya isn’t outright rejecting the possibility of romance here, because there is more to that second paragraph:

But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream. Hot Pie and Gendry had left her just as soon as they could, and Lord Beric and the outlaws only wanted to ransom her, just like the Hound. None of them wanted her around. They were never my pack, not even Hot Pie and Gendry. I was stupid to think so, just a stupid little girl, and no wolf at all.

She rejects the possibility because she remembers that Hot Pie and Gendry abandoned her as soon as they could, and that all the Brotherhood did was use her, according to her perspective on the matter. And her perspective is entirely skewed because of her abandonment and low self-esteem issues, as well as not fully understanding the class issues as she honestly didn’t think that bringing Hot Pie and Gendry to Riverrun and Winterfell would cause any issues with their friendships, which is understandable for a kid to think. Especially one that hadn’t been in the highborn world for the past year and a half. In fact, Medieval children in the real world and in the books, weren’t reprimanded for playing together regardless of class, usually the highborn children played with the children of those who worked and lived within the castle walls, from other lords children to stewards children to the helps children. It’s just something children did until they reached a certain age where it just wasn’t allowed anymore. So it’s only natural for this not to really factor into Arya’s plans.

When Arya is about to walk into the House of Black and White, Arya comforts her fear with a memory of Gendry:

Suddenly she was somewhere else . . . back in Harrenhal with Gendry [...] - Arya I AFFC

Which indicates that Gendry is still very much on her mind at this point. I think it really says something as well that Arya takes comfort from a memory at Harrenhal of all places. I think this indicates how much comfort she took from their friendship. I also think she doesn’t think about Gendry with the Brotherhood to take her comfort because while ASOS has the most romantic foreshadowing for them and the two shared some nice moments, it was also the start of them truly fracturing, or so her unreliable narration interpreted it as. After all, she actually thought that Gendry was making fun of her looks at Acorn Hall, and she thought Gendry didn’t want to be her friend anymore as he “abandoned her” for the Brotherhood. So while Harrenhal was awful and they had their disagreements there, Arya still felt reassured with his companionship and likely found it uncomplicated in comparison to her other problems at the time.

When we next see Gendry in Brienne VII AFFC we see a drastically different Gendry. While Gendry has always been guarded and sullen with a chip on his shoulder, with little love for the nobility, this change is drastic enough where it’s unsettling to read at first. Not only is Gendry just flat out rude in a very mean way but he is filled with rage. Gendry joined the Brotherhood because he liked how they handled justice, but under Lady Stoneheart there is no justice and he doesn’t seem to mind. His beliefs have shifted as well.

And though his eyes had been that same deep blue, Lord Renly's eyes had always been warm and welcoming, full of laughter, whereas this boy's eyes brimmed with anger and suspicion.

Septon Meribald asked if he might lead the children in a grace, ignoring the small girl crawling naked across the table. "Aye," said Willow, snatching up the crawler before she reached the porridge. So they bowed their heads together and thanked the Father and the Mother for their bounty . . . all but the black-haired boy from the forge, who crossed his arms against his chest and sat glowering as the others prayed. Brienne was not the only one to notice. When the prayer was done Septon Meribald looked across the table, and said, "Do you have no love for the gods, son?"

"Not for your gods." Gendry stood abruptly. "I have work to do." He stalked out without a bite of food.

Gendry was at his forge, bare-chested beneath his leather apron. He was beating on a sword as if he wished it were a foe [...]

What would a knight be doing working at a smithy? "You have black hair and blue eyes, and you were born in the shadow of the Red Keep. Has no one ever remarked upon your face?"

"What's wrong with my face? It's not as ugly as yours."

Lord Renly was ahead of her, her sweet smiling king. He was leading her horse through the trees. Brienne called out to tell him how much she loved him, but when he turned to scowl at her, she saw that he was not Renly after all. Renly never scowled. He always had a smile for me, she thought . . . except . . .

While some people chalk up Gendry’s behavior as a result of trauma about what he experienced in the Riverlands, and I don’t deny that is a factor, I don’t believe it’s the only factor because we didn’t see Gendry like this post Harrenhal or even with the Brotherhood in ASOS. Yes he embodied “ours is the fury” at times and was jealous and bitter, and rude at times as well, but he wasn’t flat out cruel to people, nor filled with rage and vengeance. The Gendry before Arya was taken would never have led Brienne to Lady Stoneheart for the slaughter after she tried to save everyone in that Inn against Rorge and Biter and co. We can also see another difference in Gendry:

Lightning cracked to the south as the riders swung down off their horses. For half a heartbeat darkness turned to day. An axe gleamed silvery blue, light shimmered off mail and plate, and beneath the dark hood of the lead rider Brienne glimpsed an iron snout and rows of steel teeth, snarling.

Gendry saw it too. "Him."

While there is no emphasis on the “him” when Gendry sees the Hound’s helm, it’s an abrupt and emotionless statement. It’s one word without emphasis but it conveys a lot. Gendry recognizes the Hound’s helm and it’s apparent he’s not happy, thinking that it was indeed the Hound for a minute. And while I’m trying to avoid discussing symbolism, I just can’t ignore how the lightning that cracked in the south could also be symbolic of Gendry’s true mood. He is, after all, a bastard Baratheon, connected to the storm, the fury - thunder and lightning - as well as sharing a connection to the god, Thor in our mythology. This lightning could symbolically be linked to Gendry’s anger and vengeance. So why does Gendry act like this when he sees who he thinks is the Hound again? He had no issue with the Hound during his trial by combat, so what changed? The Hound kidnapped Arya. And while he knows Arya didn’t die at the Red Wedding, he and the Brotherhood aren’t entirely sure if the Hound sold Arya to the Lannister’s and if she is now Arya Bolton. So it makes complete sense why he would have issues with the Hound. In fact I think a lot of this behavior we are seeing from Gendry is the direct result of the Hound kidnapping Arya and not knowing if she’s dead or being brutally raped and tortured in the North.

Why do I think this? Because this behavior began between Arya being kidnapped in ASOS and Brienne VII AFFC. Only a few to a handful of months have passed since then. This, I believe, is the inciting incident. Another reason why I believe Arya is the reason is because of what he is doing. He is staying at the Crossroads Inn, one of the last known places Arya was sighted, and he’s helping take care of orphaned children. Arya took in strays as well and cared for them, like Weasel. And considering how Gendry in ACOK wanted to leave Weasel and Hot Pie and Lommy behind, it’s interesting to see that he’s helping by taking in strays himself now, as if he thinks he may be able to atone for not saving Arya. Another reason is because the Brotherhood is actively searching for Arya as well. She is ever present on their minds. So yes, I believe part of Gendry’s change has to do with losing Arya, which goes to show how much he really cared about her. Not to mention (a tiny bit more symbolism, oopsie!), Gendry’s stay at the inn, waiting for Arya to return (I believe Gendry and the BWB are hoping that Arya is alive and will return to the inn) is a romantic aspect to the mythology of Weyland the Smith and his Swan Maiden/Valkyrie, and the aspect about the Brotherhood + Gendry searching the realm for Arya is also a romantic Cinderella motif, hence why I feel Gendry’s behavior here is supposed to have romantic subtext.

Extra: Another interesting aspect that I think foreshadows this future relationship is the meaning of Gendry’s name. Gendry is a nickname type of surname for a person who has inherited his family estates from his father-in-law, deriving its origin from the Old French word “gendre,” which meant “son-in-law.” And as we know if Arya and Gendry married when they were older, Arya wouldn’t be taking his name, but he hers, due to her higher status. So by marrying into the Stark family, he would be inheriting from his father-in-law Ned so to speak, even if it’s just inheriting the surname.

So this is everything I’ve compiled so far about Gendrya, that relies on just their foreshadowing and romantic undertones in the texts we have available but I’m positive I’ll be adding more to this list once TWOW officially releases. However, I still have a lot more to share that focuses on their symbolism and motifs throughout the story, so I’m definitely not done making Gendrya meta, far from it and I can’t wait to share it with you all!

And if anyone is interested in Arya’s and by extension Gendrya’s Cinderella motifs, you can find it at this link: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

#arya stark #gendry waters #gendry baratheon #gendrya #asoiaf

355 notes · View notes

winterrose527 · 4 years ago

Note

For the wip games (I'm so slow sorry), I wanna hear about Dancing on the Strings or Fairytales, if you haven't already talked about them :))

Hi love, thanks for the ask! Dancing on the Strings is a WIP I have on AO3. Myrcella goes to the Vale to find her half-brother Gendry, and finds the Starks, a Snow and a Greyjoy at the same time. It’s the usual pairings, but one of my favorites that I hope to return to soon.

I’ve included the one shot Fairytales below.

It was one of those clear nights that chilled the bones the moment you stepped outside. It had been years since she’d been able to see her breath and she relished it now as sounds from the party wafted through the double-paned glass windows of the Stark’s mansion.

Not for the first time, Myrcella Baratheon thought to herself that all of the fairytales were lies. In the fairytales everyone rejoiced when their lost princess was returned to them, but she had been brought back from Dorne as unceremoniously as she’d been sent there three years prior. Her mother had been hovering over her and Tommen had been sweet as always, but no one else had shown any indication that her absence nor her presence made the least bit of different. Uncle Jaime would be happy to see me, she thought, but her handsome uncle was seeing to the family’s interests across the Narrow Sea. If her family’s reception had been lukewarm, it had been positively emphatic in comparison to that of the other society girls. Where they had once at least been obsequious if not kind, they now ignored her, fluttering around the Tyrell girl with the necklines of their gowns at their navels.

In truth it mattered not to her. She had only come to this party at the insistence of her mother, an attempt for the Starks and Lannisters to mend fences as it were, and if she could not have her feet in the Dornish sand then it mattered not where she was.

“You’ll catch a cold out here,” a deep Northern voice said from behind her.

Her fifteen year old self would have swooned when she found that it belonged to Robb Stark, the eldest son of her father’s dearest friend, but Myrcella had grown in the past three years, and it would take more than his presence to daunt her now.

“Then what are you doing out here?,” she asked with a challenging raise of a brow.

The old fashioned lanterns cast him in a hazy glow and he’d loosened his bowtie. He had always been handsome and bright, the heir any father would want, as her father often pointed out to Joffrey, but there was something else to him now. He had changed too in these three years, and now at twenty there was something almost dangerous about him. Though perhaps that was just the blue of his eyes.

“I was sent to fetch you,” he explained, “That dress can’t be doing much to keep you warm…”

She looked down at her gold Elie Saab confection. Thought it was more conservative than most of the girls’ gowns, with its high neck and long sleeves, it had an open back and was thin and beaded.

“Not sure that is its purpose,” she agreed, though pretended to consider, turning this way and that and giving him an ample view of her. The Dornish men, and women, had taught her to appreciate her form, for others always would.

“You’ve changed,” he said, as though trying to work her out.

“You say that as though you knew me before I left…,” she said, though there was something in his gaze that made her unable to meet his eye.

“Perhaps not. But I’d like to know you now.”

The admission made her bold, and she was better at these games now than he was.

“I thought you were with the Tyrell girl, the pretty one,” she said, which was a useless denotation. All the Tyrells were pretty, the garden was overgrown with them now, all of them more scantily dressed with a prettier laugh than the last.

“Marg?,” he asked and rubbed his chin, “No…no we aren’t together. Though you have your Martell heir, don’t you? Tristan is it?”

“Trystane,” she corrected. Poor, sweet Trystane. “No. Warring families are so 16th century, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh I don’t know,” he said, and took his first step closer to her. She held her ground, drawing herself up to her full height. At 5’8, 5’11 in her heels, she was no match for him, who must be 6’2 at least, but she felt better with straight posture, always had. “Doesn’t everyone love a doomed romance?”

Now that he is closer she can see the stubble on his chin, she can see the light dancing in his eyes, she can see that his body is made for fighting. He had been born in the wrong century, in a different age he would have been a great warrior, a leader of men. Now he probably boxed at the gym her family used with its $300 a month membership.

“Who sent you to fetch me?,” she asked, changing the subject, keeping him on his toes, leading him in a dance of her choosing.

“Y-your…mother,” he said uneasily. The best predators are those who look like prey.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she sighed, then turned on her heel and started walking down the terrace.

“Wait! Myrcella? Where are you going?,” he asked her and she smiled to herself as she heard him run to catch up to her.

Once he’d fallen into step with her she pointed out, “Well if no one sent you to fetch me, that means no one is looking for me.”

She stopped to turn towards him and he turned towards her as well. The music drifted out of the home and she could see the couples turning round and round inside, the icicles melting on the window panes and casting them in an otherwordly glow.

She heard him sigh, but then he was stepping closer and easing his tuxedo jacket over her shoulders. It was warmed from him, and it smelled like pines and snow.

“Then come along, there’s a place I’d like to show you,” he said and offered her his hand.

She’d been warned against this, love is a poison, so she placed hers in his.

He led her down the stairs, down the gravel path the surrounded the manicured garden. Winterfell was an ancient home, but it was Catelyn Stark who had created its enviable garden out of something once referred to as the tilt yard.

Her hand felt small in Robb’s, and she was distantly aware that only he knew where they were going, but he squeezed her hand and grabbed her other one when he went to lead her down more steps in the dark, and she found that she didn’t quite care because she’d go wherever he lead.

He opened an ancient door and all of a sudden she was hit with the smell of lilacs and lavender, peonies and roses. He turned on a small storm lamp that cast the room in a warm light, and she saw that it was a kind of green house. I have not been this warm since Dorne, she thought and automatically raised her face towards the ceiling, as though the sun might warm it even now.

“Here,” he said, letting go of her hand as he went to get something. “Close your eyes,” he said.

She gave him a challenging gaze and he gave her a puppy-dog expression that looked so out of place on his chiseled features that she acquiesced.

All of a sudden a smell, more delicate than the others filled her senses.

“It smells like -,” she started.

“You,” he finished and she opened her eyes to find him holding a jasmine plant. She looked at him questioningly and he set it down. “I noticed it for the first time when you were twelve. Your parents were fighting so you and your brother Joffrey,” she did not miss the note of disdain she heard in his voice at that, “Came to stay with us. Joffrey preened around, being rude to the staff, flirting with Sansa…but you kept to yourself. You read for hours and hours every day, and then Grey Wind started disappearing. One night he came back and I went to wrestle with him and I smelled it. You.”

Myrcella thought back to those days. She’d spent much of the time by herself, both she and Sansa too shy and awkward at twelve and thirteen to really befriend one another, and Grey Wind had been her only friend. He would sit by her side for those hours as she read under a big white tree she’d found.

“You never spoke to me…,” she reasoned.

“We were children,” he protested.

“You were seventeen when I left,” she pointed out.

“And our families were at war. So 16th-century, wouldn’t you say?” he asked her with a small grin.

“And who says this peace will hold?,” she wondered.

An uneasy truce had been reached, a tacit alliance as they all dealt with the larger issue, the Targaryens.

He took a step forward, taking her hands in his and raising them to his chest, “Doesn’t everyone love a doomed romance?”

This was foolish, rash, ill-advised. He was too much, too all-consuming, too dangerous. She was smarter than this, she had always been smarter than this.

“Let’s find out,” she suggested, because at eighteen she was ready for foolishness, even for danger if it came with the feel of Robb Stark holding her.

He grinned and touched his lips to hers. It was full of sweetness and reverence and ever after she would remember it when she smelled honeysuckles.

***

Three years later, on a terrace that was adorned with the flowers from Winterfell’s glass gardens, Myrcella Baratheon became Robb Stark’s wife.

In the end, the peace held. Robert Baratheon got the heir that he wanted so dearly, and her husband as well, and no shyness kept Sansa and Myrcella from one another as they grew as close as any sisters.

Often Myrcella would wake to find a freshly cut peony on her pillow. She had called it right all those years ago, Robb Stark was dangerous. He had stolen her heart that evening, and had never returned it.

Their union brought about an era of peace and prosperity, reviving the economy and the spirit of Westeros after the defeat of the Targaryens.

The princess had returned to find her prince, who had been waiting for her those three long years she was gone. He had fallen into a spell, awakened only by her return. She saved him that night, and he saved her right back.

After all, not all fairytales are lies.

#fanfiction #modern au #robbcella #fluff #fairytales #ask

14 notes · View notes

7deadlycinderellas · 4 years ago

Text

in the dark of the moon, i planted, 3/4

Ao3 link

The snow falls lightly as Arya pursues the Brotherhood’s boy on Nan’s back.

As she rides away from the inn, she tries to ignore the pain in her heart. Leaving in the morning had been harder than she had ever expected, even knowing she would soon return.

She’d taken the knife she’d given Gendry, a more practical weapon. She’d left Needle on her side of the bed, a promise to return. As if he wouldn’t know from the half dozen kisses she’d pressed on him, in front of a couple of the children even.

The boy is easy enough to follow. The snow is not heavy enough to hide his tracks, and Nan rides slowly enough that Arya can match their tracks with his, not that she thinks anyone would be following her.

The ride takes near a day, Arya pushing Nan’s pace, slow enough that they don’t need to rest. She eats the bread and cheese she took from the inn while still in the saddle. Eventually, she hears noise ahead, that tells her the boy has met up with other members of the Brotherhood. She takes to riding parallel to the road after that, hidden in the trees, Nan’s gentle gait keeping them from making too much noise.

She listens closely, trying to make out the conversation.

“Two of them this time?” the boy asks.

“One is a woman, the other practically a boy. Picked them both up coming south, the woman’s carrying a Lannister sword.”

Arya’s stomach sinks.

“You ever think of just letting these poor fucks go?”

“If we didn’t catch any, the Lady might start hanging us instead.”

There’s a rough laugh, but there is no mirth in it.

Arya continues to follow. The day goes on, and the sky gets darker and darker. Days are short in winter, after all, and the snowy sky can’t help. By the time the men begin to slow, the sky is nearly black. They meet up with other riders, one of whom is leading the horse with two figures aboard, bags over their heads.

Eventually, they reach an area where the trees are heavier and the ground slopes upward. Arya dismounts Nan, ties her to a tree, and begins following on foot. She pulls her own cloak tight over her face.

The crowd grows, and Arya only recognizes a few of the men. They all stand around in a clearing near a cave opening on the side of the hill. About half of them look drunk, and half of both groups have bags under their eyes, eyes that are wide, as though they’ve been frightened for a long, long time.

In the back, Arya stills, when she recognizes Thoros of Myr. He sits at the head of a fire, next to another seated figure, wearing a cloak with a heavy hood.

One of the Brotherhood pulls the prisoners from their horses, their hands tied and heads still bagged.

The hooded figure stands, and Arya can’t really hear much of the conversation. One of the Brotherhood pulls the bags off the prisoner’s heads, and Arya squints to try and get a look at them.

One is tall and fair, and something about how they’re standing makes Arya think it’s a woman. The other isn’t tall at all, and his broad face seems almost simple. With a twinge, Arya realizes he doesn’t even look as old as Gendry.

There’s argument, and yelling on both sides. The hooded figure raises a finger and there’s more arguing. She pulls a sword from the taller figure, examines it and her voice gets louder and more insistent, though Arya still can’t make out the words. One of the other men begins to shout in return, when Thoros stands, speaks, and his words quiet the crowd.

Carefully, Arya steps closer, mindful of the crunching of the snow. She manages to make out him saying,

“It’s late, we’ll pass the sentence at dawn.”

The men disperse, and the fire dies down. The hooded figure is led by Thoros back to the cave.

The man who lays down to sleep outside the cave is one who to Arya looks the most drunk. She wonders if it’s his job as guard that drives him to drink, or if he just drew the short straw tonight. She gives him enough time until she can hear him snoring deeply. That was just one of the Brotherhood’s problems, they were far too fond of their drink. Or maybe it was their work that led them to drink.

As she approaches, Arya feels fear rise in her throat. She’s felt fear so very many times, fear for her own life, fear for others whom she loved, fear as she was utterly certain that she was about to come face to face with the stranger. This is an entirely different sort of fear. At least when she feared death, her fear would come to an end. She doesn’t know where this will go.

She remembers before, how worried she was when she was with the Brotherhood, how she had wondered if her mother would take one look at how dirty she was, and send her back. Her mother and her have never seen eye to eye on things, but she’d always been sure she loved her, or so she thought.

Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe her gut it wrong and it won’t matter.

The cave is small, but Arya is still quite small, though she suspects she’s reached her full adult height. She creeps, as quietly as possible, and eventually the cavern opens up into a larger area, large enough for a fire and a bedroll.

The hooded figure sits upright at the sound of her approach. The hood falls, and Arya’s breath is stolen from her chest.

Her hair is shock pale and half gone. Her face seems to be made of wet paper, still bearing the scratches from before her death. She is Catelyn Stark, or she used to be anyway.

Her eyes frighten Arya. She’s never been frightened of her mother before.

And the wound that took her life, the gaping slash across her throat still hangs open. When she opens her mouth, her hands reach up to pinch it shut.

“Who are you?” the thin raspy voice demands.

Arya remembers how unsure she was at the thought of her mother seeing her again, seeing her ragged and living among rough men. She’s still unsure, at her seeing her now, grown and broken.

Instead of speaking, Arya merely lowers her hood.

“Mother.”

Lady Stoneheart approaches, and touches both sides of her face. The touch chills Arya, down to her bone, and the Lady’s expression makes it worse.

Arya feels her hand linger on her knife.

An hour or so later, Arya emerges from the cave, and wipes the blood from her knife. As silently as possible, she uses the bedroll to pull the body. She’s grateful, this night, for all the wood chopping and child wrangling she’d done in the last years.

She has no way to build a raft, and the nearest water is more of a stream than a river. She has no arrows, so she simply lights a stick from the embers of the campfire and tucks it into her arms before setting the corpse adrift.

And for a moment, she sits on the bank and weeps. She weeps for her mother, for all her hopes, that thing in the cave was not her. Her mother died at the Twins, even though her body found a way to keep moving a little longer.

She hadn’t know she would have to set her mother free, but during the time it the cave, there was nothing else she could do.

She thinks on the Lady’s words, how she had cried out to her daughter for vengeance against every Lannister, every Frey. She hates that she has often felt the same urge, longed for the same blood to spill. She likes to think she wouldn’t stoop low enough to condemn two people to death over a sword.

For Lady Stoneheart had admitted, that was the only evidence they had against the two prisoners.

She weeps at the thought of what her father would think, of what had become of his wife, of his daughter. Ned Stark was an honorable man they always said. He would swing the sword himself, not have a band of men hang his condemned.

Would she have ended up just as bloodthirsty if she hadn’t found Gendry again, hadn’t found the inn and surrounded herself again with people?

She remembers Polliver, and that man outside the Twins. How sweet their deaths had been, yet how her heart still felt as empty and dead as the Lady’s face afterwards.

She stands, and pulls her cloak up again. She looks down the road, towards where she left Nan. She gazes further, back to the inn. It’s late, and Arya’s bones ache with exhaustion, but she could be back before tomorrow night if she rode now. She could be back in Gendry’s arms before another moon could rise.

But she cannot be Lady Stoneheart, she cannot be heartless.

The prisoners are being kept tied to a tree, their heads still bagged. Arya cuts their ties, and she feels the taller one rouse.

“Quiet,” she whispers, “And follow me.”

The three figures step carefully through the snow, Arya looping around to muddy their footprints in the snow. Eventually, they reach where she has Nan tied, and Arya is ecstatic that she is still there, not stolen or released. She pulls the bags off both of the prisoner’s heads.

“Don’t you know how dangerous it is to be traveling these parts with a Lannister sword? Not just this bunch would take exception to it. Nearly this whole kingdom still suffers under the heel of the crown,” she asks, keeping her voice low, and her hood tight.

The taller one- the woman- answers.

“The sword was given to me to keep an oath, and I intend to do so.”

Arya raises an eyebrow

“A knight then? What sort of oath might that be?”

“I’m no knight,” the woman starts, and Arya suspects she’s said the same words too many times. “My name is Brienne of Tarth. This sword was given to me to protect the daughters of the deceased Lord, Ned Stark.”

Arya is momentarily struck dumb, but Brienne continues.

“I have aided in the return of his eldest to her place in Winterfell, and I intend to do the same for the younger.”

Arya’s breath is stolen from her.

“Winterfell was taken by the Boltons after they betrayed the Starks at the Twin..”

Brienne shakes her head.

“It was retaken. Lady Sansa was in the Vale for a time, in disguise and under the guardianship of Lord Baelish. She initially refused my help, but I stayed close.”

Arya’s heart leaps. If she had stayed with the Hound, would she have been reunited with her sister?

“She discovered that Baelish intended to wed her to Ramsey Snow. She came to me then, and while Baelish was in King’s Landing, she revealed herself and marshalled the support of the other lords and knights of the Vale. I rode with her north to Castle Black to see her half-brother Jon Snow, and where Lord Stannis Baratheon had been planning to unseat the Boltons with his own army.”

Arya is still disbelieving. She does note that Brienne calls Stannis Lord rather than King. And she is elated to learn Jon is apparently still alive, even if still at the wall.

“It’s good we did too. Without the support of the Knights of the Vale, Stannis’s army might well have splintered after the rumors that the priestess with him was pushing him for a blood sacrifice to ensure their victory.”

Arya’s hands fly up to cover her mouth. As much as she wants to believe her home belongs to Starks again, the idea of Stannis, of her having set foot there makes her want to be sick.

“Do you believe it would have worked.”

Brienne’s smile is grim, and Arya suspects she shares in her distaste for Stannis, though she doubts it’s for the same reason.

“The two armies were victorious, but Stannis and his wife were killed in the battle, and there has been no sign of the Red Woman. Stannis’s daughter Shireen was stolen away from camp by Stannis’s hand when he deserted, she is at Winterfell under Lady Stark’s protection. Some of Stannis’s men who remain alive seem to believe she would have been the chosen sacrifice.”

Arya’s insides twist. Gendry was bad enough, the worst to her mind, but she cannot fathom a man who could convinced, through any means, to murder his own daughter.

“Shall I begin to spread this story among the south then?” Arya asks, trying to keep her voice light.

“I will remain in the south until I find Arya Stark. I don’t suppose you’ve heard any word? A highborn girl, though she might not look it, perhaps seven and ten years old now, with brown hair and gray eyes?”

Arya squeezes her eyes shut beneath her hood. She forces her mind to recall all the people she has pretended to be since she had last been herself: Nan, Arry, Arya with no family name.

“I may have,” she admits, and Brienne’s face lights up, even the quiet boy beside her looking pleased. “But I don’t know if she will go with you. She’s become awful untrusting.”

“If you could-”

Arya remains quiet.

“I will speak to her. If she is willing to meet you, where shall I tell her to go?”

The quiet boy speaks up.

“Last time we came through here, there was a boy at the inn at the Crossroads who knew her. Might she be more open to it if there was someone there she already knew?”

The boy is clearly not as simple as he looks, and this is confirmation that these are the same people Hot Pie mentioned speaking to those years ago.

“I will speak to her. Do you know how to get to the Crossroads from here?”

Brienne looks at the boy (she thinks Hot Pie said his him was Patrick or something), who looks, even in the moonlight, rather worn.

“We will rest for tonight and set off in the morning.”

Arya nods.

“There’s a bridge out, so you may need to go around the long way. It shouldn’t be more than a few days walk.”

“Will we still have to worry about the Brotherhood?” Patrick-or-something asks.

“They remain in these woods, but their Lady will be calling for no more hangings. Without her, they are no more dangerous than any other. They claim to fight for the smallfolk, sometimes they even do.”

“We should go north as soon as possible.” Brienne insists, “Lord Baelish has no doubt heard from his many spies what has happened up north even if the smallfolk have not, and somehow I doubt he will be proud of his ward going around his back like that.”

Not like that was his style at all, Arya thought grimly

She mounts Nan and nods to them, before riding off.

It’s close to the middle of the night, the moon high in the sky, but Arya can’t bear to stop to rest. She pushes Nan on, rubbing the old mare’s neck in gratitude and promises her so many sugar cubes for the friend and stolid stead she has been for her all these years.

They keep riding and Arya tries to keep her mind off the Brotherhood, or the perverse thing in her mother’s skin. She thinks of Gendry, back at the inn, and imagines Sansa, at home in Winterfell.

Would Sansa be happy to see her? Was Winterfell even still home?

Arya thinks she hears someone riding behind her at some point, and turns in the saddle. When the sound gets louder, she pulls the reins and dismounts, holding her knife.

The long gray snout is the first thing she sees, and then the dark gold eyes appear.

“Nymeria?”

Arya approaches her apprehensively, one hand extended. Her stomach threatens to leap into her chest. Nymeria’s teeth begin to show and Arya feels her chest tighten, but then she extends her tongue and laps at her hand. When Nymeria quits licking, she rolls onto her back and Arya explodes with glee.

They ride so long that she gets to see the sun come up, in that moment that the snow has paused. Her eyes droop, but she will not stop. Nymeria trots on beside her.

It’s close to noon and the clouds have closed and the snow has begun to fall again when the inn comes into sight and Arya’s heart sings.

When she enters the clearing to the front of the inn, Nymeria sits on her stomach between two trees, watching her.

“I know,” Arya tells her, “You’ve been wild for so long, you’re not a pet. I would not ask you to go among people.”

She’s untacking Nan at the stable, and brushing her and filling her trough from their meager bag of oats, when she hears a squeal.

“Willow! Arya’s back!”

She doesn’t see which of the children run past yelling that, but it puffs her up all the same.

When she comes in the front door of the inn, Willow interrupts her scrubbing to come up to her.

“Arya!” she says, excitedly, squeezing her shoulders, “Never leave again, if you must, at least take Gendry with you, he’s been miserable to be around the last day and half.”

“Really?” Arya asks, her voice feeling strangely small.

Willow nods.

“Snapping at the boys, not eating his meals. He’s out in the forge now if you want to see him.”

Getting off Nan, Arya’s exhaustion has hit her like a sack of bricks. But she has to see Gendry before she goes upstairs.

He’s in the forge to be sure. The fire’s lit, and he appears to be beating the hell out of a hinge. He’s removed his shirt, and is shining with perspiration.

Arya stands back, enjoying the show.

As soon as he puts down his tools, she’s upon him, cheek pressed against his chest, inhaling in his scent. She doesn’t want to shock him with the touch, but she can’t help wanting to hug him.

“You shouldn't go around being mean to people just because I’m gone,” she sniffs against his chest. When she pulls back, the look he has on his face, watching her, eyes wide and grinning. It makes the breath disappear from her throat.

“You’re back,” is all he says.

Arya smiles.

“I am. I have so much to tell you too, but…”

She yawns.

“I really need a nap. If I’m not up for supper, wake me. I’ll eat and bathe, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

She holds both of his hands in her own for what seems a lifetime before she pulls away and heads upstairs.

She doesn’t even change, just pulls off her boots, flops onto the bed, and sleeps.

The dreams come again, images of the Lady’s hanging face, her pointing finger, how little blood there had been on the knife. She dreams she kills her again, but the figure keeps rising, and squeezes its hands over her neck, squeezing out the life from her, again and again…

She’s eventually woken by a hand on her back, and jerks a little.

“You alright?” Gendry asks.

“Sorry,” she says, “Bad dreams.”

“Well, supper’s ready.”

Arya’s stomach growls, and she laughs. Gendry grabs her hand.

“C’mon, lets get food in you.”

Arya sits up and just looks him up and down for a moment.

“My mother would have hated you,” she blurts out.

Gendry steps back a moment, and Arya feels awful for a second. She stands, and continues.

“She would have hated you. Even aside your low birth, your dirty profession and your being bastard.”

She reaches out and grabs him.

“And not even a little bit of that matters, because it doesn’t matter to me.”

Her eyes radiate sincerity as she stands on her toes to kiss him.

“What on earth happened to you out there?” Gendry asks.

She throws an arm around him. Her stomach growls.

“Let’s go eat and I’ll tell you everything.”

Supper is just a thin soup and sawdust thinned bread, but it fills Arya up all the same. In fact, she’s quite glad that it’s not too heavy on her stomach as her and Gendry sit in their corner of the kitchen and she tells him everything that’s happened in the last day and a half.

His face goes through every single emotion it seems, horror, fear, joy. He looks horrified when she tells of what had become of her mother, confirmed that whatever his faults, Beric had given up his life for that. There’s a bit of petty joy in his eyes when she tells of Stannis’s death and the Red Woman’s vanishes. But when she tells him,

“Brienne should be here in a few days, and if we don’t linger we should be able to get to Winterfell before the worst of winter begins.”

His face sticks on sadness, defeated sadness. Arya’s stomach drops.

“What?”

Gendry looks away from her, hiding his face.

“I guess this is goodbye then.”

Arya feels her insides go cold.

“You don’t want to come with me?” she asks, her voice small.

His face shifts.

“Do you want me too?”

“Of course I do, you bloody idiot!” she exclaims, jumping to her feet. Her voice takes on a shrill, yelling tone, though she’s still trying to keep it down .

“We’ve been living together, sleeping in the same bed for over two years! We slept in the mud and sleet together, just so we could keep each other safe! You found me when I was in the worst period of my life and kept me from drowning in it!”

She burns as she says it. All these years, and he still thinks of her as “milady”, somehow more important than him, as if he could ever be unimportant. Her voice softens.

“After all of that and you think I would leave you behind? Didn’t I just promise you that I wouldn’t?”

He’s still seated, so she’s looking him straight in the eye. She spares a look around the inn, to where Hot Pie is clearing the supper dishes, and Willow comes in to help wash up, listens to the sounds of the orphans laughter echoing through the walls.

“I could be happy here,” she says, her voice quiet, “With you, and the children, and Jeyne and Willow and Hot Pie. I could be happy here forever. But I want you to see Winterfell, I want my brother and sister to meet you. I want them to know what you’ve done for me.”

He reaches out and carefully wraps his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder.

“I couldn’t sleep last night without you,” he admits, “the bed felt empty, but it still smelled like you. I thought it would be easier if I just got used to you being gone, so that it wouldn’t hurt all over again if you left again.”

Arya wiggles and kisses the side of his neck.

“I promised you something else before I left.” she whispers, a hint of lust, “And I intend to keep that promise.”

She pulls back, and Gendry’s pupils are so large his eyes look black.

“I need to close up the forge,” he says.

“And I need a bath,” Arya replies.

He nods, and stands.

“I’ll meet you upstairs.”

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #gendrya #fic

12 notes · View notes

theusurpersdog · 5 years ago

Text

Waking The Dragon

Due to. . .recent events. . .I think it’s important to go back through George RR Martin’s books and really understand what he was trying to say with Daenerys Targaryen. She occupies the same space in the narrative that Jon Snow does, where she’s just stereotypical enough, just fantasy trope enough, that people take for granted who her character is and what she represents. But, like Jon, if you read her chapters with an open mind, you’ll notice all of these great subversions and character traits that you miss the first time.

Breaking down the journey she takes in A Game of Thrones, GRRM lays a lot of tracks for where the story will take her. . .

The Outsider

The first thing about Daenerys is that she is instantly an outsider. GRRM loves writing outsiders, and a huge amount of the POV’s in book one are introduced as an outsider in some way; Jon being a bastard in a society driven by status, Arya as a tomboy in a patriarchal society, Sansa as someone who doesn’t fit with her family, Tyrion as a dwarf in an ableist society, and so on. Daenerys takes this concept to its extreme; not only is she an outsider within her own world, she is an outsider within the narrative. All the POVs we’ll have in this book were the victors of Robert’s Rebellion. They may have lost things (like Ned losing Lyanna) but Robert’s Rebellion worked for them in a way that they either ended up better off than before, or received some form of justice for the wrongs they’d suffered.

But Daenerys lost. She was supposed to be a Princess, to grow up in the Red Keep with an entire kingdom at her feet. Instead, we are introduced to a young girl who hasn’t truly known a home her whole life, a girl who thinks she was chased around a continent by assassins out to take her life. We know, because we’ve lived inside Eddard Stark’s head, that Daenerys’ family was unequivocally on the wrong side of Robert’s Rebellion, but suddenly we understand that even in a just war, innocent people will get ruined.

So, with Daenerys being the lone Targaryen POV we have, it creates a sort of dissonance where she is portrayed as sympathetic, yet is the natural enemy to the Starks who are our heroes. When her brother Viserys tells her these awful stories of “the Usurper and his dogs”, we know she’s being lied to because we know Eddard Stark, but yet we have to sympathize with this child who was supposed to have everything and, instead, was left with nothing. Like Tyrion, we as a reader don’t quite know how to feel about her, because she is the antagonist of our heroes, but when you see things from her perspective suddenly this black and white war turns into a hundred different shades of grey.

The House With The Red Door

Moving from what her existence means to the narrative, we begin to understand what Robert’s Rebellion did to her as a person. The first we see of her, she is feeling a dress so soft it scares her, as her brother Viserys tells her she must look like a princess:

A Princess, Dany thought. She had forgotten what that was like. Perhaps she had never really known.

For the first time in her life, she’s starting to get a real taste of what she lost as a child, and she’s scared. It becomes clear that Viserys is an abuser in her life, and seeing him so fevered is terrifying. For the first time in his life, he’s been given a clear path to reclaim the Seven Kingdoms and the Iron Throne that by rights should be his. Viserys was old enough to remember Dragonstone and King’s Landing and the throne he lost; these are all tangible things that he can remember, that he knows someone stole from him.

But Daenerys doesn’t have that connection to Westeros. She wasn’t even born when her mother retreated to Dragonstone, and just a baby when Willem Darry smuggled her and her brother to Essos. Home is a very loose concept that Daenerys can never firmly grasp because she never truly had one. She understands that she was never allowed to just be a child, but she can’t place where it all went wrong. Viserys has this clear line, when he was 8 and a Prince and had everything; then suddenly everyone he knew was dead and he had nothing. Daenerys doesn’t have that; all she has is this memory of a house with a red door.

This house with the red door is so important to her, because it is the closest she has ever gotten to home; the one place she can look back on and feel like she had what she was supposed to:

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometime “My Lady,”. . . That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window.

Yet, Daenerys knows that wasn’t really her home, just the closest she has come. Her character will chase that feeling, of being safe and in control and having things, for the rest of the books. The house with the red door works so well as a writing device from GRRM, because it is this vague idea of a thing; from the beginning it is clear that Daenerys herself doesn’t really understand why this house with a red door appeals so much to her, so she can never get that feeling back. From the start, Daenerys is chasing this thing that we know she can never have. What she does when she realizes that, is a question for later books.

But what, from a Doylist perspective, is this house with a red door supposed to be? Daenerys thinks it is home, but the symbolism of this house is childhood and innocence. The things Daenerys remembers fondly about it are important; Ser Willem calling her “princess”, the lemon tree, having her own room. The first is very important, because being a princess is what Viserys has filled her head with – it’s the childhood Daenerys knows she was owed by blood. The lemon tree is a bit more complicated; A Dance With Dragons will really start breaking down Daenerys and trees and all the imagery that goes with her arc, but trees is what Dany wants to want. To watch the lemon tree grow, is to spend years in the same place. And trees also need peace to grow; you have to love and care for a lemon tree. Having her own room also means that Daenerys was well off. Safe, comfortable, and well-off princesses have their own room with a lemon tree outside. So while the house with the red door represents childhood and innocence, I also think it’s important to recognize that it also represents Dany’s longing for her life of royalty. She doesn’t have the same murderous vengeance as Viserys, but she has that same passion for what was taken from her; a sort of blinding desire that gets in the way of seeing things clearly, especially when it comes to understanding that the Iron Throne wasn’t stolen from her family – they murdered it away chasing dragons.

Speaking of Daenerys’ connection to home, there is some interesting symbolism at play when Daenerys visits the markets. Daenerys loves the sights and smells of the Eastern market, the excitement of trying and seeing new things, experiencing something foreign. But she turns toward the Western market because it smells of home. When she was younger and went to the bazaar with Viserys, they hardly ever had enough money to buy anything but a certain type of sausage that Daenerys remembers fondly. She finds it again with her handmaidens and khas:

“They taste different than I remember,” Dany said after her first few bites.

“In Pentos, I make them with pork,” the old woman said, “but all my pigs died on the Dothraki sea. These are made of horsemeat, Khaleesi, but I spice them the same.”

“Oh,” Dany felt disappointed

Something is lost on the Dothraki sea, and home will never be the same again.

She Forgot To Be Afraid

The header has a hopeful sound to it, and the tail end of Dany’s first chapters do as well, but the first part of her story is incredibly bleak. Fear is such a heavy element in Dany’s story, partially because it really sets up the decisions she’ll make in her final chapters, but mostly because it is the reason for her character growth. Once Dany finds her place and begins leading as a Khaleesi, we start to see her true personality come out and she is a person again. But for the first few chapters, Dany has almost none of the character traits that later define her, because fear has suppressed them. Living under Viserys as she grew up, constantly dancing around his “dragon”, she had no space to be the bold, fierce, avenging girl she ends A Game of Thrones as. A couple of her traits really shine through in these first chapters, like how much more intelligent and perceptive she is compared to Viserys and some of the adults around her, because her others characteristics have been put on hold; but it’s really just tragic to read about Dany’s life up to this point. Viserys has lied to her (unintentionally, since he is delusional, but…) and made her think she’s only been one step ahead of assassins her whole life, and then turned around and abused her for things out of her control (like her mother Rhaella dying in childbirth, or how he sold their mother’s crown to feed her):

His fingers brushed lightly over her budding breasts and tightened on a nipple. “You will not fail me tonight. If you do, it will go hard for you. You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” His fingers twisted her, the pinch cruelly hard through the rough fabric of her tunic

“We go home with an army, sweet sister. With Khal Drogo’s army, that is how we go home. And if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will.” He smiled at her. “I’d let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army. Be grateful it is only Drogo.

The picture this paints of what Viserys has been like to Daenerys for years now is shocking (later books will also elaborate that Viserys tried to rape her in the days after this, but Ilyrio’s men stopped him). And like I said earlier, the way Dany has to avoid waking his dragon consumes all of her mental energy. Between trying not to anger him, and longing for days before he became so cruel, there simply isn’t anymore left Dany can give.

The Blood of the Dragon

From the very first chapter, Viserys introduces us to a core concept of GRRM’s world, and for lack of a better name, I’d call it Targaryen entitlement. Even after Viserys dies demanding he be crowned in A Game of Thrones, we aren’t even close to understanding the full reach of Targaryens overstepping in the name of themselves. Fire and Blood Volume I shows us that Aegon conquered a whole continent to get his relative a girl, whether she wanted him or no. That’s the kind of history standing behind Viserys when he threatens Dany with Drogo’s khalasar.

But for now, Viserys is our look inside what led to the implosion of the Targaryen dynasty, and it’s not pretty:

The dragon does not beg

You do not command the dragon

The dragon speaks as he likes

The dragon is not mocked

And Daenerys’ inner monologue gives some context as to why “the dragon” sees himself as so far above the rest:

Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men.

Later books and the extended canon will elaborate on this concept further, as we learn the Targaryens are quite literally the blood of the dragon (which is why their severe inbreeding leads to dragon/human hybrid babies); but the important thing here is that Viserys views himself as a God amongst men, a majestic beast unfit to mingle with the sheep. This god complex gives us an understanding of why the Targaryens act the way they do, though; when you’re so high above everyone else, their lives start to matter less and less.

The idea that Targaryens are inherently better than everyone else, drives Viserys as much as his own victimization does:

Ours by blood right. . .You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers

Viserys’ language is filled with quotes like this. While he does talk of getting revenge for his brother Rhaegar, or killing the usurper who sits on his father’s throne, an equal amount of his anger is focused on being a dragon. Not only did the Usurper take what belonged to him, but he dared to think himself equal to a dragon.

And Daenerys does not seem particularly interested in either of these things:

“Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”. . .Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him.

From the beginning, Dany has found strength in being Daenerys Targaryen, but not in the way Viserys did. She is empowered by it because it gives her a sense of identity; even though she doesn’t have a real home or real friends or anybody, she knows who she is. Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen is not meaningless, she is important; and Dany needs that to hold onto. Her last name cost her so much, but it’s also what keeps her going.

Once her relationship with Viserys starts to fall apart, Daenerys’ relationship to being a Targaryen starts to change. When Daenerys embraces the khalasar, she suddenly becomes very powerful; as long as Khal Drogo is alive, all the men must follow her commands or risk their Khal’s wrath. And being Khaleesi also gives Daenerys a certain sense of place; it’s never going to be home to her, but she belongs there much more than she’s ever belonged anywhere else. She fully begins to embrace their customs by dressing as they do, learning to speak Dothraki, and respecting their sacred beliefs. For the first time in many years she feels comfortable, and she can’t understand why Viserys won’t at least try and join her. The more Dany finds a place for herself, the more determined Viserys is to demean and reject the Dothraki. Where Dany is enjoying their travels to Vaes Dothrak and wouldn’t mind staying with the Dothraki for any number of days before sailing to Westeros, Viserys pushes and pushes to get what he bought with Dany’s marriage. He has no interest in living with the Dothraki, much less wearing their clothes and speaking their language. This divide between them finally allows Dany to see Viserys for what he truly is:

He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been.

And seeing him for the pitiful man he’s always been starts to reshape how Daenerys sees herself. Like almost everyone from Westeros, Daenerys believes very strongly in two things: hereditary monarchy and the divine right of the Targaryen dynasty. Yet she sees Viserys, who by both those measures is the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, and understands he doesn’t deserve it:

Jorah pulled up his horse and looked at her. “Truth now. Would you want to see Viserys sit a throne?”

Dany thought about that. “He would not be a very good king, would he?”

“My brother will never take back the Seven Kingdoms,” Dany said. She had known that for a long time, she realized. She had known it all her life. Only she had never let herself say the words, even in a whisper, but now she said them for Jorah Mormont and all the world to hear.

Ser Jorah gave her a measuring look. "You think not."

“He could not lead an army even if my lord husband gave him one,” Dany said. “He has no coin and the only knight who follows him reviles him as less than a snake. The Dothraki make mock of his weakness. He will never take us home”.

Before I continue, there is one thing I want to emphasize – Daenerys never gives up on her brother. David Benioff and Dan Weiss trying to paint his death as a moral turning point for Daenerys is simply not true. She does put him in his place, like when she takes his horse away from him, but those are not bad things; he physically abuses her, and she removes him from her space by having him at the back of the khalasar. It was a logical and reasonable punishment for his behavior, especially because as Khaleesi she could have had him killed for it. Up until he tries to cut her child out of her, Dany never considers harming him and tries very hard to make him see reason. Even though she feels incredibly close to her dragon eggs, she offers them to Viserys as a last chance to make him happy and to save his life.

While she didn’t give up on him as her brother, she did give up on him as her King:

When her son sat the Iron Throne, she would see that he had bloodriders of his own to protect him against treachery in his Kingsguard.

I wish GRRM spent more time elaborating on this quote of Dany’s, because it’s fairly revolutionary. We know from being in Dany’s head that she has no intention of harming or killing Viserys; and yet, she sees her son sitting on the Iron Throne. Does she just assume he will do something stupid to get him killed on the way? Or has she removed him from the line of succession because he’s a vicious idiot? I’d like to know more on what Dany’s head space is at that moment.

It becomes very clear what her thoughts are once he dies, though:

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon

Because Daenerys believes in the monarchy and in the divine right of Targaryens, she has to find a way to square Viserys being the “rightful” King and also being a monster she won’t put on the Iron Throne. And the concept of being a “dragon” is how she does it. Viserys constantly called himself one, and Ser Jorah Mormont said her brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and once Viserys dies Dany realizes she is the dragon. Of course, everyone else was using “the dragon” in more metaphorical terms, but it becomes clear a little later in the story that Daenerys is much more literally a dragon. Viserys’ death is the first time we see Daenerys fully commit to who she is, the blood of the dragon. She rejects Viserys’ version of her family and starts seeing herself and her son as the future of House Targaryen.

Part of her really starting to embrace herself as being the blood of the dragon, is because she wants to go home to Westeros:

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye, they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red

Before, when it was Viserys forcing Westeros on her, she never wanted it. But being Khaleesi, Dany realizes that she does want what her family lost:

If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home. She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old. . . and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman. . . but not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.

This is where some of Daenerys less charming qualities are coming out, as far as why and how she wants to take back the Seven Kingdoms. Wanting power or having it are not inherently bad things, but the problems start to show in how Daenerys wants to gain it. Her urge to conquer Westeros is explicitly tied to being Daenerys Targaryen; she wants to reclaim it in the name of “kings and conquerors”. There is no way to remove Daenerys from the long history of abuses Westeros had to suffer under Kings like Aegon the Conqueror, Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy, The Mad King Aerys, etc, because Daenerys is coming for the Iron Throne in their name. She’s not just related to them, they are what drive her forward. Later books, and especially A Dance with Dragons, will dive much more into what Fire & Blood means to Westeros and Dany, but even in A Game of Thrones there is attention brought to the bloody history of House Targaryen. This passage also starts drawing attention to the two different people she is; there is Dany, who is a young girl eager for home and love and happiness and belonging, then there is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them, the dragon’s daughter.

Daughter of Dragons, Bride of Dragons, Mother of Dragons

Beyond Daenerys’ familial connection to her house, there is a strong magical link to Daenerys and her dragons. Even though they aren’t born until the final chapter, A Game of Thrones really highlights the connection she has to them. She receives her three eggs as a gift at her wedding to Khal Drogo:

Dany gasped. They were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than the others, patterned in such rich colors that at first she thought they were crusted with jewels

Right after this, Khal Drogo gifts her Dany’s silver, which she rides and for the first time isn’t afraid. There is a connection drawn between Dany receiving her dragon eggs, and then receiving a mount she finally feels comfortable on. For now, Dany will have to ride her silver, but soon her dragons will be her mount.

The parallels between Daenerys and her dragons are already very clear as well. When she first gets her eggs, they are beautiful but seemingly dead; hard and lifeless stone nobody expects to hatch. Similarly, Daenerys is overlooked by those around her in favor of her brother Viserys, and she’s seemingly dormant. She doesn’t have any ambitions to cross the Narrow Sea and take back the Iron Throne, and nobody is investing in her future. But instantly Daenerys feels something within the hard stone, and keeps them with her almost always.

When she’s at her lowest of lows on the Dothraki sea, at the height of Drogo’s abuse and her feeling lost and unloved, it’s the dragons that bring her back from the edge:

Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

After that dream, her chaffed thighs start to heal and she can ride her silver much better than before. Mentally she also finds a new strength and is able to keep going, which leads to her embracing the Dothraki. She is able to draw actual strength from the eggs, and in return they also find strength in her:

She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shell. Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers. . . or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously.

As Dany starts to come into her own, her dragon eggs begin heating up. Both her and her dragons are starting to wake up. And as the book continues, Dany begins associating herself with dragons and as a dragon more and more; first when Viserys dies, then when Robert sends assassins after her, and again when she is claiming the Lhazareen women as her slaves:

The Usurper has woken the dragon now

“The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”

As she grows more comfortable being the dragon, her eggs slowly get closer and closer to coming alive and Daenerys feels called to them:

Cradling the egg with both hands, she carried it to the fire and pushed it down amongst the burning coals. The black scales seemed to glow as they drank the heat. Flames licked against the stone with small red tongues. Dany placed the other two eggs beside the black one in the fire. As she stepped back from the brazier, the breath trembled in her throat.

Daenerys also has dreams of literally becoming a dragon:

A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew. The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings

Daenerys being pregnant with her son also offers a lot of insight into what her future is as the last dragon. All of the prophecies and foreshadowing surrounding Rhaego are actually about Daenerys, and it’s the start of her destiny being intertwined with the beautiful horror of dragons:

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

“As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name.”

The first quote really affirms Daenerys’ role in the story as the true dragon, the last dragon. In A Game of Thrones, as well as in A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys has dreams of turning into Rhaegar; while fandom argues what this means and there is plenty of different meanings it could have, I personally believe the foreshadowing is that Daenerys is the last dragon. Many times in the story that role is given to Rhaegar, but we see with Daenerys that she is more a dragon than he ever was.

The second quote is the prophecy given to Daenerys by the Dosh Khaleen in Vaes Dothrak, where they name her son The Stallion Who Mounts The World. This prophecy is obviously about Daenerys; the Dosh Khaleen assumed the future they were seeing belonged to her son, but they were actually seeing Daenerys’ own future. Rhaego dying makes it quite clear, but the prophecy referring to the Stallion Who Mounts the World as “fierce as a storm” really seals the deal; after all she is Daenerys Stormborn, named after the storm that destroyed her family’s fleet. This prophecy is extremely ominous, with lines like “His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief” and “milk men in the stone tents will fear his name”; this does not sound like Daenerys is going to be liberating Westeros (the “stone tents” is a reference to castles). The name this “prince” is given, The Stallion Who Mounts The World, is also very similar to another prophecy of Martin’s – the rape of Westeros Daenerys sees in the House of the Undying. The language used to describe how the Stallion comes to mount the world is bloody and violent; wives crying for their husbands, men living in fear, etc. It’s a very concerning look into the future.

If I Look Back I Am Lost

A lot of people had problems with Game of Thrones’ depiction of Daenerys in s8, based on the idea that her dark turn came out of nowhere. And in no way am I defending the show’s characterization of her, or the portrayal of her dark turn, but a lot of that criticism has gotten carried over to Daenerys as she stands in GRRM’s books, which is simply not true. Daenerys has struggled with darkness her entire arc, and it really comes to the forefront in her last several A Game of Thrones chapters.

The Dothraki raid of the Lhazareen village is a huge turning point for Daenerys. Once Robert attempts to have her assassinated, Dany is finally able to convince Khal Drogo to sail across the Narrow Sea and take the Iron Throne for her and her son. To do this, the Khalasar attack a peaceful village and a rival khalasar, and it’s Dany’s first real look at what her war for the Iron Throne will be like:

Dothraki hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood.

Daenerys see’s Khal Drogo’s men herding a young boy, teasing him until they get bored of the game and cut his head off. The men are also raping women atop piles of their dead people, and it’s sickening to her:

It was different with the townsfolk. Dany pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like.

As she continues to walk through the Dothraki’s destruction, she tries to steel herself to the horrors around her:

I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryen reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate.

But as she realizes their captives will be sold into slavery, she breaks:

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’s Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

Notice what GRRM calls her here; in the first quote when she is able to harden her heart and ride forward she is “Daenerys Targaryen”, but in the second when she almost begins to cry GRRM softens and calls her “Dany”. I’ll get into it more below, but Daenerys is constantly at odds with herself and those are the two versions of her. Remember when I said the lemon tree is what Dany wants to want? There is a part of her that craves that simplicity, but life keeps pushing and pulling her towards that other part of her, the blood of the dragon, the seed of kings and conquerors, the part of her that is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen.

But in this moment, Daenerys Targaryen loses. Dany, the part of her that remembers what it’s like to be terrified, to be a slave, decides to turn back:

Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

Notice how this passage starts: Behind them. Daenerys has to look back to save Eroeh. By the end of this book, Daenerys has made “If I look back I am lost” into her life philosophy, and it’s heartbreaking. Her last couple of chapters tell the story of a good-hearted person trying to help people and fix the mistake she’s made, yet when it all goes south she learns all the wrong lessons.

When Daenerys tries to claim these women to save them, she does it with all the naivety of a 14yo girl. We shouldn’t expect her to know what to do in these situations; she’s a young girl and she has a very simple understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong, and more importantly she has a very simple understanding of what is and isn’t a slave.

One of the women she saves in this town is Mirri Maz Duur:

They passed other women being raped. Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue.

Mirri is the only woman who says thank you to Dany, whereas the others are terrified that Dany has spared them for something worse. So, when Mirri speaks up that she can help Khal Drogo, Dany stands up for her against the Dothraki and allows her to help him. The mental processes of Mirri Maz Duur are still actually very unclear, and I know a lot of people argue over when she decided what she was going to do and even what she actually did. But to me, it seems heavily implied that Mirri’s original efforts were made in good faith. Khal Drogo falls ill because he disregards every single one of Mirri’s instructions by ripping her poultice off, smearing his wound in mud, and drinking wine and milk of the poppy heavily. When Dany calls Mirri to look at him again, she instantly knows Drogo has ignored her:

“He has been dulling the hurt with milk of the poppy.”

“Yes,” Dany admitted.

“I made him a poultice of firepod and sting-me-not and bound it in a lambskin.”

“It burned, he said. He tore it off. The herbwomen made him a new one, wet and soothing.”

“It burned, yes. There is great healing magic in fire, even your hairless men know that.”

Mirri seems very genuine here, and lays out that Drogo ignored everything she told him. It doesn’t make logical sense that she could have done this to him, considering he ripped her poultice off almost immediately and preceded to do all the things she told him not to. I think Mirri made a genuine attempt to help Drogo, either altruistically or as an attempt to gain favor with her new master (Dany), and then is completely ignored, which seems to upset her. What also upsets her, is that Dany owns her:

“You do not ask a slave,” Mirri replied sharply, “you tell her.”

As we progress further, I really want to encourage readers to remember Mirri’s perspective in this story. I won’t dive too deep into her motivations, because this is about Dany and Mirri really deserves a meta of her own, but understanding her is key to understanding what GRRM is trying to say at the climax of Dany’s arc. Remember that Dany threw the first punch between them, and while Dany did try to help Mirri, Mirri tried equally to help Dany and Drogo and had her efforts thrown back in her face.

And while Mirri Maz Duur is entirely misleading at points, she never lies to Dany and she tries to talk Dany out of it:

Mirri Maz Duur sat back on her heels and studied Daenerys through eyes as black as night. “There is a spell.” Her voice was quiet, scarcely more than a whisper. “But it is hard, lady, and dark. Some would say that death is cleaner. I learned the way in Asshai, and paid dear for the lesson. My teacher was a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands.”

The first time Dany thinks to herself “If I look back I am lost”, is when Mirri tells her she knew that the price to pay was Rhaego and did it anyway. I’ve seen it argued that this is unclear or false, but I completely disagree. This quote here is evidence enough:

“Death?” Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. “My death?” She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid.

Dany dying for Drogo would certainly lead to Rhaego’s death as well, since the sacrifice needs to happen before the night is done and Dany has no thoughts of going into labor. This quote makes it even clearer:

“No,” Mirri Maz Duur promised. “Not your death, Khaleesi.”

Dany trembled with relief. “Do it.”

She agrees before Mirri tells her what the sacrifice is. Dany would have given up anything in that moment to save Khal Drogo.

Like I said earlier, she is still a very young girl here and doesn’t have any reason to be able to handle the weight that’s been placed on her. But she gets incredibly focused on Drogo once he falls sick, and her care and compassion for anyone else seems to disappear:

Eroeh stared fearfully at Drogo where he lay. “He dies,” she whispered.

Dany slapped her.

Eroeh is the girl Daenerys saw gang raped atop a pile of corpses, the girl who’s wails turned Dany around.

After everything goes so horribly wrong, when Drogo’s men turn against her and Jorah brings her into the tent with Mirri and she loses Rhaego and Drogo and wakes up with nothing, Mirri tells her this:

“I spoke for you,” she said, anguished. “I saved you.”

“Saved me?” The Lhazareen woman spat. “Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god’s house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved.”

“Your life.”

Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. “Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone.”

Mirri obviously makes some morally dubious decisions, but there is a lot of truth in what she tells Daenerys. What Dany viewed as saving, Mirri sees as a pitiful gesture; the damage was already done before Dany changed her mind, and she didn’t see or understand that. If Daenerys was in a more understanding mindset, Mirri has a great lesson to teach her about how you treat people, especially your slaves (because yes, Mirri is Dany’s slave).

That’s not the lesson Dany learns though, she learns If I look back I am lost; which is a callback to a passage from her earlier chapters:

Behind them the great horde might tear the earth and muddy the rivers and send up clouds of choking dust, but the fields ahead of them were always green and verdant

Deciding not to look back is a decision Dany makes so she doesn’t have to face the reality of her choices and mistakes. Everything is okay if she doesn’t turn back, if she doesn’t see the way her actions sow a crop of blood in the soil. But like I said, Dany’s best moments come when she looks behind her. If she didn’t look back for Eroeh, she would have left women to be raped and sold into slavery. Especially when we get to A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons, it’s just so clear that looking back is essential to Dany’s morality. She tries not to through those books, but she can’t stop herself. Yet every time she does, she hates it. She hates that she saved Mirri Maz Duur and cost herself so much in the process. That’s why she tells herself If I look back I am lost, to remember to never look back again.

Waking the Dragon

This is the climax of Dany’s arc in A Game of Thrones; everything in her chapters is leading her to the moment she steps into Drogo’s funeral pyre. From her first chapter, she dreams of her dragons:

There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.

Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid. . .

Her next dream has a much more positive feel, but carries the same language:

She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam

This dream really reminds me of GRRM’s inspiration for his title, Fire and Ice by Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire/Some say in ice/From what I’ve tasted of desire/I hold with those who favor fire

When Dany is in Mirri’s tent, her dreams start to take on a very ominous tone:

…

She woke to the taste of ashes.

The progression of her dreams tell an interesting story. At first, when Daenerys wants no part of Viserys’ dreams or the Seven Kingdoms, the dragon in her dream terrifies her and she wakes more scared than she’s ever been. But when the dream comes to her on the Dothraki sea, after she’s received her eggs as a wedding gift, she embraces the dragon in her dream; lets the fire mold and shape her, burn away her fear and hurt. And when she’s fever dreaming in Mirri’s tent, she takes the next step and becomes the dragon; flying over Westeros, chasing the red door. As Dany progresses through A Game of Thrones, she slowly embraces the dragon until she is ready to hatch them in her final chapter.

What’s most interesting is the framing of what that means. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we are introduced to the concept of “waking the dragon” through Viserys’ threats to Daenerys. From the first chapter, we’re meant to understand that waking the dragon is really bad for Daenerys. She tries her hardest not to wake the dragon, because something very bad will happen to her if she does. And her first dream of the dragon from her second chapter feeds into this narrative; the dragon seeks to burn her.

In her second dream, she is much more comfortable standing before the dragon; but it’s important to realize that nothing has changed in the structure of the dream. Her dragon still wants to burn her, but now she finds strength in that; let this dragon burn away her weakness and temper her strength. She’s starting to grow closer to her eggs, and also more comfortable with her heritage. Being with the Dothraki stripped her of everything except herself, and she’s starting to fall back on that for strength.

A lot of time passes before she has her last and final dream before hatching her dragons, and the tone has now changed. She isn’t standing before the dragon; she is the dragon. In her dream, she hears Viserys saying “You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” and as she dreams it slowly falls away until all she hears is “wake the dragon”. Through her travels on the Dothraki Sea, she’s gone from a scared girl cowering before the dragon, to the one flying overhead, making every living thing tremble in fear.

She has gone from Dany to Daenerys Targaryen.

And this isn’t supposed to be a good thing. Like I said, it’s not a coincidence that we’re introduced to “waking the dragon” as something Dany should fear. The imagery of her dreams is very clear; Dany is burned away, and in the ashes rises Daenerys Targaryen, Queen and Conqueror.

The most ominous and foreboding part of how Daenerys wakes the dragons, is of course the sacrifice she makes to hatch them. It’s pretty clear in the text, but confirmed by GRRM in interviews, that Daenerys is able to walk into the fire unscathed and hatch her dragons because of blood magic. She has already lost Drogo and Rhaego permanently at this point, so I don’t take issue with using their deaths towards saving herself, but the sacrifice of Mirri is entirely different. I want to establish that Daenerys knows what she is doing when she chooses to burn Mirri:

“I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.”

I’ve seen many people who argue that Daenerys would eventually turn dark use this quote as one of the first signs:

“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.

“I will,” Dany said

But to me, the end of that sentence is much more frightening:

“but it is not your screams I want, only your life.”

Daenerys understands that Mirri’s death is paying for her dragons, and that’s why she does it. I would understand, I would be less worried for Dany, if her killing Mirri was a rash decision made out of grief, exhaustion, pure rage; but it’s not. It’s a cold, rational, calm decision; she thinks about it, understands it, and then burns Mirri alive.

Remember when I said Mirri had a valuable lesson to teach Daenerys, and Daenerys learned all the wrong things? This is what she learned, that only death can pay for life. Instead of hearing Mirri’s critique on what Dany was complicit in, Daenerys takes it to heart that death should not be meaningless; not in the way that life is precious and therefore should be preserved, but in the way that she should get something out of it – in this case dragons.

I also want to call attention to what Mirri is to Daenerys. A lot of Daenerys’ more adamant defenders will call back to the same argument every time: Daenerys kills slavers. Killing bad men, even if in brutal fashion, cannot just suddenly change into killing the innocent and oppressed. But remember, Mirri is where it all started; yes Daenerys was in some way involved in the brutality that befell the Lhazareen people, but it is clear she didn’t have a full understanding of what she was asking when she said she wanted to take the Iron Throne, and turned back on her decision to try and help the girls. Burning Mirri Maz Duur is the first death that is the direct result of Daenerys’ choice (Viserys’ death was the result of his choices). And who was Mirri to Daenerys?

Her slave.

This decision also highlights a certain capacity for cruelty. I previously mentioned that Daenerys slaps Eroeh, the girl she saw gang raped only days prior, and again she shows something similar with Mirri:

“I am tired of the maegi’s braying,” Dany told Jhogo. He took his whip to her, and after that the godswife kept silent.

I understand that Mirri has taken Rhaego from Daenerys, but it shows a certain tunnel vision Daenerys has that she cannot understanding that much more was taken from Mirri before the maegi resorted in blood magic.

This kind of tunnel vision Daenerys is something she has through all the books, Daznak’s Pit being the clearest example, and A Game of Thrones is no different. The simultaneous horror and beauty of Daenerys’ blaze is breathtaking. Something horrific is taking place; the horse murdered for Drogo is burning, Mirri Maz Duur is screaming, Jorah and the Dothraki are shouting and crying. Yet the language is beautiful:

Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that hellish wind, the logs hissing and cracking, glowing cinders rising on the smoke to float away into the dark like so many newborn fireflies

The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils

The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each on a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. She saw crimson firelions and great yellow serpents and unicorns made of pale blue flame

You can almost forget the horror of Mirri burning, because the flames are just so beautiful to Daenerys. The flames are described like dancers, floating and swirling and captivating her; everything else doesn’t matter anymore, only the flames. Yet GRRM doesn’t let us fully forget:

The pyre roared in the deepening dusk like some great beast, drowning out the fainter sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s screaming

She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE?

I’m not trying to say that Daenerys is a bad person now. She still has so many redeeming qualities; she still cares deeply for people, fights against slavery, wants to help her people. In lesser fiction, character arcs on a graph are a straight line headed up or down, but GRRM is writing a masterpiece. He has no interest in clean arcs because real people are not one note; if you plotted a real person’s choices out on a graph, it would be a series of small ups and downs while still trending one direction, there could even be massive rises or falls because real people slip and regress as they fall into old habits. Daenerys is on a path leading to a dark turn, but she still has many highs left to go. The speech she gives to the Dothraki before she lights Drogo’s pyre is evidence of this; she looks out and sees her people, those rejected by the khalasar that left her. The old, the children, the women, the sick or crippled; and she embraces them. Daenerys is fiercely loyal to this group of people who still stood by her after everyone else left her. And she sets them free; Daenerys’ new khalasar will not be built on the backs of slaves.

But the dragons call to her, and she can’t say no to them. She is the blood of the dragon, and the fire is in her. Daenerys wants many things, like peace and home and trees, but all of those things fall away when she sees the glory and bane of her house. When she stands in the pyre, everything else falls away; the roaring and cracking of the fire and her dragons hatching drowns out the screams and shrieks and cries. The fire dances in her eyes and pulls her forward. Her dragons are beautiful and terrible, awe inspiring and fear inducing. They will always be both, just as Daenerys herself has always had both callings inside her, and it is very fitting that her A Game of Thrones arc should end here

For the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

#asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #anti daenerys #game of thrones #asoiaf meta

637 notes · View notes

vixerehq · 4 years ago

Photo

event i : killing dionysus ; part two

TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, injury, hanging, knives, weapons guns.

the night had been winding down. drinks had been served far too many times, the happy couple had been congratulated –– begrudgingly, but congratulated –– by all, and everyone begins to say their goodbyes ; ready to leave yet another meeting of the families behind them. that’s when the lights went out. a blackout.

with no windows, no candles, and no pesky mobile phones with their handy flashlights, it’s almost as if someone wanted it to be pitch black, with paranoid mafia families stuck inside a building with no weapons, no phones, no exits, and far too many questions they can’t answer. what could go wrong?

by the time someone’s pulled out a lighter and found a candle, the screams have already begun. people stuck in elevators and storage rooms. masked men cordoning off the vault and attacking anyone they can. makeshift weapons made from broken bottles and unlikely alliances made in split-second decisions. it’s too late.

in an empty room with empty tables and abandoned drinks, balon greyjoy, father of theon greyjoy, is found dead in his seat: his throat cut. alerie tyrell, mother to margaery and loras tyrell, is found in her seat: her throat cut. obara sand one of the infamous sand snakes, is found dead in oberyn martell’s seat: her throat cut. obella sand, ellaria sand’s daughter, is knocked out beside her but unharmed. robert baratheon is found by the vault door –– his throat cut, yet still alive. trystane martell is missing, and ned stark is found just in time ; saved by an approaching theon greyjoy.

nobody’s realised what any of this was about. morning is beginning to rise. the police have locked down the street from both ends ; stopped the media and innocent bystanders from straying too close. and as people begin to leave from the same red door they first walked in through, they see them: from the second storey balcony hang petyr baelish and lysa arryn ; a bullet each in the chest, dead before they were ever thrown off the ledge. there’s black ink smeared on their faces and gold leaf stuffed in their mouths. a mark of the lannisters and the greyjoys. peace was always overrated.

LOGISTICS: you may continue threads from the first part of the event, as well as threads designated below and threads set in the medical tent afterwards. please do not begin threads past midnight on the day of the attack. new characters will be added and given roles. the event will stretch from saturday june 20th to sunday june 28th. if you have any questions whatsoever, don’t hesitate to contact the main.

location: the whole house. time: eleven-thirty pm onwards. extra music vibes: [ x ]

LYANNA STARK & ESRA TALLHART & SANSA STARK are in the elevator, one the way up from the vault when the electricity goes out. they are stuck there in suspension, just the dim glow of the emergency light flickering as the old, shaking lift barely hangs on. LYANNA realises that the elevator is beginning to slide down little by little ; and the three begin to call for help ; bracing for impact.

ducking behind the bar, NYMERIA SAND & DACEY MORMONT & BRYCE CARON & BRIENNE TARTH put aside their loyalties and form a vanguard. using broken bottles and whatever else they can find –– knives, pens, a hammer –– to fight and incapacitate as many masked men as they can. NYMERIA beats two men to death . they are the ones to hear LYANNA & ESRA & SANSA in the elevator once the coast is clear. BRIENNE and BRYCE and DACEY work together to get the lift doors open.

EDRIC STORM & JOFFREY BARATHEON are stuck together, trying to find a way out of the dark basement. both have suffered MINOR INJURIES and CUTS TO THE FACE. they decide to venture through the makeshift dining hall to escape through the vault doors. that’s when they see ROBERT BARATHEON with his throat cut but breathing. they try to stop his bleeding and try to get out of their as quickly as possible.

THEON GREYJOY & LORRA CRAYNE & ARYA STARK are in the kitchens when the lights go out ; and the sound of screams, they decide to stay in the kitchen –– until they can get enough weapons. grabbing KNIVES and a BLOWTORCH, they quietly venture outside. while ARYA and LORRA fight off a masked man and KILL HIM, revealing him to be LOYAL TO ASHA GREYJOY ; THEON runs up ahead and fights off more masked men from harming NED STARK.

MYRCELLA BARATHEON & LEONETTE FOSSOWAY & ALIYA DAYNE are in the powder room when two masked men steal inside. while MYRCELLA is hit in the head and falls back, ALIYA grabs her heels as a makeshift weapon and the three women DISARM and TIE UP both men. when unmasked, they are revealed to be LOYAL TO CERSEI LANNISTER. they stick together and stay hidden until BRIENNE TARTH comes to find them.

TYBOLT CRAKEHALL & OLENNA TYRELL & MACE TYRELL & DAENERYS TARGARYEN are in the library when the commotion starts. the one LANNISTER MAN who steals in is hit on the back of the head by TYBOLT and they blockade the door as best as they can until NYMERIA SAND comes to find them.

MARGAERY TYRELL is stabbed deep in the arm. she is hiding in a storage cupboard with JON TARGARYEN, who grabs a LONG KNIFE. they go outside and are met with a masked man ; who is fought and defeated by JON. they go through the dining hall and see ALERIE TYRELL is dead. while MARGAERY deals with this revelation, OBERYN MARTELL fights off masked men and comes into the dining hall as well ; only to see his daughter dead. it is JON who rallies and gets them out of there. he thinks quickly and pulls the FIRE ALARM ; scaring off the masked men and alerting the authorities.

BARBARA BRACKEN & RHAENYS TARGARYEN & ARIANNE MARTELL have stolen guns off dead men’s bodies ; they duck behind the aquarium to stay safe. however, when FIVE LANNISTER MEN come after them, they fire towards the aquarium itself. water and glass goes everywhere ; and while the three women are only mildly hurt, the men are hurt and dealt with quickly. RHAENYS has suffered a bullet graze to the leg ; and ARIANNE & BARBARA need stitches. teaming up, they duck into the stairwell and find their way out.

the first people to leave the party, LORAS TYRELL & ELIA MARTELL & DESMERA REDWYNE had left before the blackout happened. but they had been upstairs, talking through and laughing about the night, when the masked men had crept into the house. after a fight ALL THREE had been tied up and left in a locked room while the men descend. desperate to warn the others, LORAS breaks through his binds and helps the others. they run to get help.

ELLARIA SAND & RICKON STARK & RENLY BARATHEON are held at gunpoint at the stairwell. none are armed ; but they talk to distract the masked man and shove him down the stairs ; killing him so they can escape. they run back down to the basement and through the dining hall. ELLARIA sees obara dead and obella unharmed ; RENLY sees his brother still alive and RICKON is reunited with his family.

ANYA WAYNWOOD & SARELLA SAND & JON TARGARYEN have set up a makeshift treatment centre in the upstairs library ; everyone is required to get checked before they are allowed to leave. as the injured, assailants, and corpses are brought up, ANYA & SARELLA & JON find squid ink in every knife wound ; confirming that it was a GREYJOY plan ; they also find gold leaf, confirming LANNISTER involvement. SANSA STARK is also in the treatment centre, counting numbers and keeping an eye on things to ensure nothing gets out of hand.

#vixere:event #please read the triggers!

10 notes · View notes

goodmeowningcols · 5 years ago

Text

Canon Arya Stark Appreciation

Surviving Fleabottom

During the massacre at the Tower of the Hand that killed her father’s guards and household staff, which started right after Sansa went to Queen Cersei and told her about her father’s plan to send the girls back home to Winterfell, Arya escapes the killings and evades capture. For many days, she survives using her wits and resourcefulness. She ends up in Fleabottom, a dangerous part of the city where the poorest live. Her bundled things which contained a silver bracelet she wanted to sell and her extra clothes are stolen immediately except for the clothes she was wearing and Needle which she was lying on top of as she slept. She survives by hunting pigeons, eating them raw at first then learning to trade them in shops for cooked food.

“The only thing was, the pot-shops were never empty, and even as she bolted down her food, Arya could feel them watching. Some of them stared at her boots or her cloak, and she knew what they were thinking. With others, she could almost feel their eyes crawling under her leathers; she didn’t know what they were thinking, and that scared her even more. A couple of times, she was followed out into the alleys and chased, but so far no one had been able to catch her.” -Arya, A Game of Thrones

Arya was literally running away from implied rapists at Fleabottom but since she was only 9 years old, she didn’t even understand what was going on.

And just moments ago, all she had wanted was milk and cake.

“Arya would have given anything for a cup of milk and a lemon cake...”

This was right before the bells ring and she follows the crowd to the Sept of Baelor the Blessed where her father will be beheaded.

😭My poor little wolf girl. It kept getting worse too.😭

This girl deserves more stans. Besides Jon Snow, who was the only one who kept thinking of her and worrying about her. Throughout all the books.

#arya stark #arya meta #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #ned stark #jon snow #jonrya #arya stan #canon arya #canon #asoiaf > got #asoiaf quotes #game of thrones #got #house stark

84 notes · View notes

waitingforanangel · 6 years ago

Text

Growing up with and dating Robb Stark would include Part 3

(This won’t follow the correct storyline of the show)

(Requests are open so just look at my profile to see what I wrote for and send requests if you want to)

Part 1

Part 2

-You could sense a new feeling of hope once the army had gained a hostage that mattered to the opposing side alongside the fact that Robb’s army had no lost a battle yet. Any Lords that doubted Robb’s ability to act as the leader of an army had soon turned around their opinions as your husband continuously demonstrated signs of great warlike strategy. Battle after battle led to more and more hostages being taken and the army getting closer and closer to Kings landing.

As Robb’s wife, you had clearance to sit in and listen to the war meetings held daily by Robb and his fellow bannermen but they sometimes went on for the full day and you understood next to none of what they were saying so you spent time with either Catelyn or your personal handmaiden, Johanna, that refused to stay in Winterfell and followed you into the middle of nowhere.

-On this current day you found yourself chatting with Johanna about a young soldier who had stolen her eye when a young boy that the army used as a spy and messenger ran up to you with a letter in his hand. The seal had already been broken so you knew that someone had already read it and as you opened it yourself you immediately knew who had.

You murmured a quick apology to Johanna before running as fast as you could to the other side of the camp where yours and Robb’s tent lay. The messenger boy stopped you, however, before you made it a few steps and pointed in the direction of the woods that stood to the East of the camp. With a small smile thrown his way you hurriedly changed course and slipped across the mud, trying to make it to your husband as fast as possible.

Walking through the camp led to a few soldiers giving you sympathetic looks. Word must spread fast in a camp as closely knit as this one. You felt tears started to well up in your eyes but you kept your head up high. You needed to stay strong for your husband and for the men that were looking at you in the absence of your husband. You needed to be strong. It was just too unreal to be true.

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Wardon of the North was dead.

-As you get closer to the treeline you can hear Robb from within. You pause and stand beside the first few trees to catch your breath. You had just found out that your husbands’ father had died and trying to walk to Robb gasping for breath would not help you comforting him. You had never seen Robb fully upset, you never had a reason to, so nervousness built inside of you as you walked closer to where Robb currently was. You had no idea how he would react to being disturbed but you were wife and to hell with him if he wanted you to leave him alone when he was this vulnerable.

-You walked past a close cluster of trees into a small clearing where you found Robb, sword in hand, violently attacking a tree. You moved to your left, so you were in his peripheral vision and he was aware that you were there and slowly started to walk towards him. He didn’t stop hitting the tree which caused you to stop a couple metres from his person. He took a few more swings at the tree before throwing his sword on the ground and turning towards you.

You stared at each other for a few seconds. You could tell him a never-ending speech about how sorry you are, but you know that wouldn’t help in the slightest. He knew that you were close to his father also and so you simply walked up to him and put your arms around him. He stood completely still for a fraction of a second before grabbing onto you and putting his head into your neck. It only took a few more seconds for him to start crying.

Over the course of knowing Robb you had never seen him cry, yet alone break apart in front of you like he was now, and it terrified you. All you could do in that moment was wrap your arms tightly around him to assure him that you were still beside him. You stayed like that for a couple of minutes. The both of you standing there, silently mourning a father figure to the both of you and assuring yourselves that you were both there.

Robb straightened up which caused you to release him and turn to look behind you and your face dropped even lower. You turned back to Robb, gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand before walking over to his mother who was watching the both of you with a smile on her face. Robb gave you a small smile back before you walked over to your mother in law, hugged her and walked back towards the camp. You wanted to be there for your husband but at the same time you knew that the person who could comfort him the most was his mother. You wiped away the singular tear that fell before heading back to your tent.

-The next few days were tense. The army had lost its spirit and its main cause for fighting. They trudged between the tents like the dead and the gleam and fire in their eyes was gone. Your husband still fought on though. In the presence of his soldiers, he couldn’t show any weakness for fear of even more doubt spreading through the camp and so the only true Robb you saw was in private and even then, talk was hardly exchanged. You could see the fight slowly leaving him also and with no word yet to be heard about Arya or Sansa you could understand why.

-The men had decided to throw a little party of sorts to try and lighten everybody’s spirits. Sure, it was just a group of men drinking together but it would have been one of the best things they’ve done since leaving their homes to fight this war.

Everyone was laughing and joking together as the night was young. Even Robb let loose and drank and smiled with his friends, just the sight of his smile gave you hopes for the future you both had together but as the night grew older the talk, as it always did, turned to more serious topics and debates.

-The men were planning their course of action on who to team up with against the Lannister’s-Stannis or Renly. You knew that Stannis was the legitimate heir to the throne and yet rumours had started to spread into your camp at how Stannis ruled his followers with a red woman beside him who worshipped the ‘lord of light’. Renly was nice enough, apparently, but had only seen wealth and comfort with slaves answering to his every will, not to mention that he was the younger sibling. This debate was what Robb’s men were arguing about.

-The men were saying that Robb’s armies should pledge fealty to Renly and yet Robb voiced your opinions about the problems that came with us supporting Renly. This left the army with a dilemma. The army didn’t want to side with Renly or Stannis and Joffrey was an obvious decision to avoid so the men were starting to get restless.

“My lords” Lord Umber made his presence known by standing up and walking to the centre of the group.

“Here is what I say to these two Kings” He said before spitting on the ground. You playfully rolled your eyes at his stereotypical behaviour but smiled none the less.

“Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither” From the corner of your eye you saw Robb straighten. You understood his curiosity on what Lord Umber was going to say next.

“Why should they rule over me and mine from some flowery seat in the South? Even their Gods are wrong” and laughter rose from the people surrounding him. You leaned forward slightly in your chair, not entirely sure where this point was going to end up.

“It was the dragons we bowed to and now the dragons are dead” He pull his sword from its sheath, the noise of metal slicing through the air, before pointing it at Robb.

“There sits the only King I mean to bend my knee to. The King in the North”. Voices broke out around the camp as your eyebrows raised considerably. You didn’t know a lot about Northern history, that is true, but you knew that there hadn’t been a King in the North for centuries.

Beside you, Robb stood up and looked, almost challengingly, into the crowd that had grown suddenly quiet.

“Ill have peace on those terms” Another bannerman stood up to agree.

“They can keep their red castle and their iron chair too. The King in the North” From beside you you felt Catelyn tense up. You could see where this was leading to and you could tell that it frightened her as much as it did you.

You turned to your left to see Theon approach Robb.

“Am I your brother, now and always ?” He asked your husband to which he responded “Now and always” and Theon joined the first two men at Robb’s feet.

Lord Umber shouted from his kneeling position “The King in the North” and the night was filled with the responding shouts of every man at the scene. Swords were taken from their sheaths and everyone bowed down towards your husband as they crowned him the first King in the North in centuries.

He slowly looked around at all of them before turning to look at you and holding out his hand to you. You realised with a jolt that if he was King in the North, you were his Queen. You turned to Catelyn with worry and nervousness but she simply took your hand and smiled before gesturing back to Robb. You could see the worry in her eyes but you both knew that you couldn’t stop or change what had just happened so you looked back up at your husband, let him take your hand and stood up beside him and the cheers changed:

“The King and Queen in the North”

@icouldbeyourpatronus for being my n1 fan so far and @tsuupa just because

#robb stark #robb stark x reader #game of thrones #game of thrones x reader #house stark #robb stark imagine #game of thrones imagine #dating robb would include #dating robb stark would include

160 notes · View notes

reader-imagines-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Vows [Part 5] (Jaime Lannister x Stark!Reader)

a/n: aaahhh! hi! im back! im sosososo sorry that i was gone for so long oh my gosh! school hit me like a ton of bricks and i needed some time to get in the swing of things! take this and enjoy and guess what? i'll have part 6 up tomorrow along with a filled request! enjoy, loves, and thank you for being so patient and understanding!

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 6 PART 7 PART 8 PART 9

TAG LIST: @queen-of-the-north-amina @avistella @chippychipmunks @buckybarnesisalittleshit @chloehamiltonn @millie67 @doctorwhoandrory

WORD COUNT: 2,093

*************************************

"Choices, choices. Take the bridge and risk being seen by anyone or cross the water and,"

Brienne tugged on Jaime's chain, the not-so-golden-anymore Lion stumbling. Although he had almost fallen flat on his front, Jaime's smirk held strong.

"Silence, Kingslayer."

His smirk fell.

Out of habit, Y/N corrected her. Y/N corrected anyone who called Jaime by that title, no matter who they were. After Jaime had confessed to her that he hated it, she began hating it too.

"His name is Jaime."

Both knights looked at Y/N curiously, but she paid no mind. Jaime's eyes lingered but Y/N was determined not to look his way.

After discovering that she was with child, Y/N had taken to avoiding her husband. Her time in her brother's camp, two months to be exact, was filled with sneers and taunts thrown her way each time she ventured from her tent. 'The Lannister Bitch' they called her. These men, pledged to her house and sworn to be loyal. Calling her child a bastard because of her marriage to the enemy. A marriage she had no say in. To a man she had grown to care about despite the devastating heartbreak he had put her through.

Y/N felt that she deserved every taunt thrown her way.

Y/N felt like a coil, wound so tight that she may never straighten again. She had been forbidden to relieve her stress in the tilt-yard as she had throughout her childhood. The second that she had picked up her sword, Catelyn was there to scold her for endangering her heir. Her sword was confiscated and Y/N felt defenseless. Left to sit and watch her twin plan and do the fighting, Y/N was constantly on edge and ready to argue. Hormone imbalances due to pregnancy didn't do her any favors, either.

Robb had finally snapped and confined her to her tent when she questioned his betrayal of the Frey's in front of his counsel. Her twin had accused her of siding with the Lannisters, all but calling her a common whore, before banishing her from the tent. Y/N felt like a prisoner among her own family.

When Catelyn approached her that night, telling her that she needed to get Sansa and Arya back, Y/N had been immediately on board. Anything to feel free again, even if only for a short time.

Catelyn knew that traveling while with child was especially treacherous, but she also knew that where Jaime went, Y/N would have to follow. She was a Lannister now, pregnant with a Lannister cub. It broke Lady Stark's heart to send her daughter back into the lion's den, but Y/N knew she had no choice. It was expected, and would lead to less conflict. 'From this day until my last day' they had said.

So, in the dead of night as Robb and the camp slept, Catelyn watched as Brienne's horse led Jaime's out of the camp by a chain, Y/N following on her own. In the pit of her stomach, Catelyn knew that she would never see her eldest daughter again. It was a mother's intuition, and it was painful. Her family was being torn apart before her very eyes, and she was all but feeding Y/N to lions.

A week into their journey, Y/N knew that Jaime was purposefully being a pain in the arse to inconvenience Brienne. This irritated Y/N to no end.

Constantly plagued by nausea and forced to sleep on the forest floor, only three dresses in her pack and hardly any chances to bathe, Y/N absolutely loathed Jaime's attitude. She wanted her husband's support and maybe some gratitude for helping him escape. Instead, Y/N got snark and constant sarcasm. Putting Jaime in his place became a common pastime for Y/N. Jaime would never say it aloud, but he absolutely loved it when Y/N would bite back at him.

Currently, Y/N stared at the rushing river in front of them with hungry eyes, feeling the weeks worth of grime on her skin all the more now that the prospect of a bath dangled in front of her. She knew there was no time, and it took physical restraint not to rush into the cool water.

Jaime continued to talk, his usual condescending tone light on his words. The tone brought Y/N back to the situation at hand, causing her heart to ache as she thought back to the early days of their marriage, before their world went to shit.

"Cross the bridge and risk being seen by anyone passing by, but cross by water and risk being taken by the current or my escaping down stream."

Y/N scoffed, "Good luck with that, dear husband. You'd drown and I'm not jumping in to save you. Neither is Brienne."

Jaime shrugged, smirking. "It's wonderful to watch you struggle with these dilemmas, darling. You're jaw clenches and it's really very endearing."

Y/N didn't acknowledge Jaime's term of endearment. "The bridge is safer. In the water we risk being overturned with a boat of that size and three people. Again. The water is cold and the current is too strong. It's too dangerous. We'll cross casually and hopefully raise no suspicions."

Jaime rose an eyebrow, still smirking. "Well, well. The new Lady Lannister, a gambler. The country will have an absolute fit."

=========================

Stepping onto the bridge, Brienne took the rear with Y/N at the head.

The threesome walked briskly before Jaime decided to sit, complaining that he needed to rest.

Y/N knew exactly what he was playing at and she hoped she could keep him moving. "Jaime, sweet, please. Now is not the time for thi-"

"I've been on my feet far too long, darling. Corns. I never used to get corns. Of course, I used to ride everywhere."

Brienne pulled on Jaime's chain, looking around in paranoia. "Get up, now!"

Y/N was about to speak when Jaime reached and stole Brienne's sword from it's sheath, cutting his weak chain and standing at the defense.

Brienne was down a sword, but still prepared to fight. She was completely prepared to defeat the Lion of Lannister, but Y/N held a hand up, stopping her.

Brienne paused, hoping that Y/N had not hoped to side with her husband. She wouldn’t be able to hold them both off, unwilling to harm Y/N. Brienne’s eyes widened in shock as she was proven wrong.

"Brienne, your sword if you would?"

Brienne hesitated, as did Jaime. But the knight conceded nervously and Jaime stood his ground.

Y/N tested the sword in her hands, the hilt feeling at home as it pressed into her palm. Y/N had missed swordplay. Desperately.

"Stand down, Jaime."

Y/N's voice was steel, cold and hard. Jaime had never heard her speak that way. Upset? Yes. Broken? More times than he'd like to think about. But the steeled and passive way she spoke now was something Jaime had never heard.

"Now, now, Y/N. Gambling and threatening your Lord Husband? I thought Starks were honorable?"

Brienne went to step forward, but Y/N again stopped her.

"Let me handle this, Brienne. You swore a vow to my mother not to harm him. I swore nothing. Keep watch."

Y/N could see that Jaime faltered slightly, fighting to keep his cocky facade.

"You wouldn't kill me. Our wedding was nothing but vows. You did swear."

Husband and wife danced circles around each other, both staying on the defense but neither quite willing to make the first lunge.

Y/N smirked, Jaime noting just how intimidating the facial expression made her appear.

"I swore to be yours. I don't remember anything about me swearing to protect you. However, you swore to protect me, did you not? The only one breaking vows here is you, darling."

Using Jaime's slight hesitation at the mention of their vows, Y/N lunged and attempted to disarm him. Jaime blocked her quickly, eyes hard as he began lunging.

Now on the defense, Y/N blocked three blows before yet again moving to disarm Jaime.

Still finding ways to shock her husband, Y/N's expression gave nothing away as they fought. Jaime was pushing his sword down hard onto Y/N's, the steel clashing right in front of her face.

"Jaime, enough! This is ridiculous!"

Y/N pushed up with surprising strength and Jaime staggered back.

Jaime stabbed at Y/N again, his wife stepping back and blocking. "You're right, my love. It's ridiculous that I never knew my wife could fight this well."

As the pair fought, Brienne stood back, worried about the attention that the fight would draw to them and terrified that the pair would hurt each other. As the fight progressed, the couple grew more and more intense, swinging harder and aiming to injure.

Stepping back to breathe, Jaime and Y/N stood poised in defence should the other one attack.

"You're graceful, Y/N. I'll give you that."

Y/N's eyes narrowed.

"You'll give your life soon if you don't stop acting like a fool, father of my child or not."

Jaime lunged at her, angry that she would threaten him with their babe, hearing a hiss of pain before he was forced back with a kick to the stomach.

Y/N was breathing heavily and Jaime's heart dropped painfully when he noticed a shallow cut on her collar bone. He had hurt her. Another vow broken because of his pride.

"You're a fool."

Before Jaime could respond to his wife's harsh whisper or even think, Y/N had stepped forward and kicked his legs out from under him, using his distraction to her advantage.

Jaime landed on his back, the breath stolen from his lungs as he made impact with the ground. Y/N caught his sword before it fell and tossed it over the bridge, her other hand holding the tip of her blade to Jaime's throat. Her grey eyes were ablaze and Jaime knew that he had only experienced true, unadulterated fear of this nature one other time, ten-and-seven years ago when he murdered the Mad King.

"Do you concede?"

Before Jaime could even attempt to force words out of his throat, slow clapping came from behind Brienne, and the two women turned quickly. Jaime's eyes remained on his wife. Sword in hand, hair mussed, the sun casting a glow over her lithe form. Had she always looked like such a goddess? Jaime was so enthralled with Y/N that he didn't hear the man address him.

"Well, looks like your woman has gotten the best of ya."

Y/N looked to the flayed man of House Bolton flying on their banners and tensed. She remained composed, years of lessons coming back to her as she held herself as a lady should. At least, as regal as one could look while holding a sword to their husband's throat.

"Yes, well, passion and anger make for weak swordplay." She didn't lower her sword and Brienne felt defenseless without her own weapon.

The man at the head smirked, appraising Y/N, eyes raking over her body. Jaime's jaw ticked angrily.

"What's your name, love?"

Y/N, quick and calm as a Stark should always be, responded smoothly.

"Alessandra Snow. I was a handmaiden at the Stark camp."

The man laughed heartily, his men laughing with him. "Don't take me for a fool, Lady Y/N. I'd recognize The Flower of House Stark anywhere. Little Lyanna. Your brother's been lookin' for ya."

Y/N ground her teeth at the nickname, not bothering to cover for her lie or even apologize. Her gaze remained level with his until his eyes shifted.

Tilting his head to look at the man behind her, the man’s smirk grew. "And that makes you Jaime Lannister. Just the man we need."

Jaime stood, stepping in front of Y/N. She didn't continue to point her sword at him.

"Let us be. My father will give you whatever you want."

Y/N rolled her eyes, looking to Brienne to find a similar, painfully annoyed expression on the knight's face. Her jaw clenched as she looked to Jaime, knowing that he was completely serious. Almost four-and-ten and still calling on his father's money to get him out of tight situations.

The Bolton man scoffed, "Enough for a new head? If the King in the North hears that I had the Kingslayer and his sister and then let them go, he'd cut it right off."

Y/N's eyes hardened and she raised her sword, but she didn't remain on the defensive for long as they were all seized. Jaime had grabbed her wrist, stopping her from fighting, his eyes focused on her stomach. Y/N's eyes were still ablaze with fury when she looked at her husband, on her knees in front of the Bolton bannermen.

"I'd rather he takes yours."

#game of thrones x reader #game of thrones imagine #game of thrones #jaime lannister x reader #jaime lannister imagine #jaime lannister #imagine #desi writes #vows

705 notes · View notes

paulamoon1 · 3 years ago

Text

Such fools this people are.

So they are determined to proof that Jon and Arya aren’t the end game couple.

But!

They steal, reference and foreshadowings that are clearly about Jon and Arya. Like

“What do you know of my heart, priestess. What do you know of my sister” is 1000000x infinity about Arya.

“What is the name of this little sister you don’t have?” Melisandre to Jon.

“Arya”

Like hello is Arya.

The girl in grey is Alys.

BUT!

Melisandre acknowledged her mistake and even fears that Jon won’t land her an ear after her mistake.

Jon himself sees the mistake, and understand why and how Melisandre made it. Alys looks like Arya. She has the northern colorations. However, Jon who not two chapters before feared that he wouldn’t recognized Arya. His heart proof him wrong. He can. He was able to set aside Arya or “what he thought could be an older Arya” from Alys Karstark.

He even when as far as yet again while examining Alys body he noticed the similarities with Arya. Keep in mind that all of this turmoil was happening why Alys had sit up and her breast bare in front of Jon.

Different roads lead to the same castle. That was Jon’s promised and foreshadow that Arya and him will walk separated walks of life, even though very similars (the night watch to the house of black and white. Their vows are the same. They can’t inherit lands or tittles. They have no family, they can’t carry or father children, they can’t be anyone’s spouse. )

However that they will cross path in due time and it would be a common household.

“You will marry a King and Rule his castle”

[if Jon becomes king in the north, however arya will be the one to run the house. He will held the north thanks to her support. he will be a king and the red keep is his castle as well. We also have a foreshadow connecting Arya to the red keep and with the cat that Arya chased around the castle. ( older than sin, black bastard, the true king of the castle). Arya escaping the red keep through the old tunnel only the blood of the targaryen would knew how to navigate. Seeing the dragon skull and mentioning how they didn’t scare her, that they almost seem like old friends. This are foreshadows of Arya possibly becoming a Targaryen through marriage, and her posible involvement with them in the future.

and if he finds out about his parentage. He could take Arya as his wife.

As cousins

Since Jon and Arya’s grandparents were cousins : Richard Stark and Lyarra Stark.

Or as brother and sister

Jon’s paternal grandparents

Aerys II Targaryen and Rhaella Targaryen.

Jon died because he wanted to save Arya. Arya was Jon’s fuel to leave the black. They killed him because he broke his vows but for Jon his personal reason was Arya and Arya’s safety.

Something he didn’t do

For Ygritte

For Ned

For Robb

For bran or rickon

Or when he heard of Sansa’s marriage.

Arya was his fuel. Arya was his reason.

In ADWD the entire north plot moved because of Arya.

Jon deciding to side with Stanis so he could safe Arya.

Melisandre knowing that she was wrong and that they needed to get the girl to be on the commander’s good faith.

The northern Lords siding with Roose Bolton because his son was to married Ned’s brave little girl. But Ramsey better be good and make his bride smile or he will lose the northern support.

Jon allowing Marce to live under one condition that he rescues Arya and bring her home to him.

Jon after Stanis and Marce fail to deliver Arya to him. He decide that HE will be the one rescuing Arya and keeping her safe.

He will claim his father’s seat and take the north back under a Stark. It was Arya who fuel the story.

It doesn’t matter if is not the real Arya.

The northern lords don’t know that

Jon doesn’t know that

Stanis doesn’t know that

Melisandre doesn’t know that

Marce doesn’t know that.

So they are fighting or fought to safe Arya and to bring her back to Jon Snow.

Jon died that night, worried about Arya’s safety.

They can’t take that away.

And if they are using stolen Jonrya foreshadowing, thoughts and quotes officially written in the novels then they are even more stupid than we thought.

If they need this Qotes to proof Jon.Sa is real. Doesn’t that mean that according to them Jonrya is real. Because 95% of their “proofs” are quotes, thoughts and references by Jon about arya.

Jonsa metas be like: Extended Cut

The miniature rant version

Yeah. We’re getting tons of romantic content in that corner. Totes. What else is the purpose of Jon Snow’s resurrection? Or rather, what even is the other purpose for Jon Snow’s existence, if not a prop to make their innocent-compassionate-empathetic af precious birb a Princess/Queen/GodEmpress?

(if they could have their way she’d be ascended to Godhood at this rate)

Yo is this even foreshadowing or a bloody game of "let's find out common words in Jon and Sansa's chapters and string em up together and write a bloody dissertation!"

My remaining two braincells cannot handle this poetic parallel😔😩✊🏻

Ok real talk folks.....what’s in that kool aid kid?

Listen, after pulling crap like this, you all have no rights to defend yourselves when we rightfully call you out on this. Absolutely none. No amount of mental gymnastics can justify this.

Presenting to you 🥁🥁🥁 Quotes by Jon comparing his first love to his sister🥁🥁🥁:

“She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore.”

“"If you kill a man, and never meant', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever?”

...... soz there ain’t any about Sansa. I checked in the back and all I promise.

And, hate to break it to ya but, remember Catelyn of Houses Tully and Stark? Yeah, she kinda, y’know, carried the zygote that grew into a fetus over a period of nine months and pushed the said fetus out whom they named Arya. Half of her mother, half a Tully. Thus, half a fish. Pretty sure there’s even a fish reference that jon made towards Arya regarding her swimming.

............So?

Let's give this a serious consideration. Firstly, lemme get this lil point out in the open: foreshadowing is wildly different from coincidences. Coincidence is there being a Jon(nel) and a Sansa in the same time period in the family, just like the current generation. Parallel/foreshadowing would look something like this:- Jon, who's the half brother of Rickon, just like Jonnel was to Cregan's heir Rickon, would marry the older daughter of Rickon (my son my boyyyy <3<3<3) in a distant future. Capisce?

And finally, the icing on the cake. My personal favourite 🙂

Look, it's bad enough that the writer decided to pepper in cursed bits throughout the books that make an incestuous pairing highly likely. (by incest i mean the emotional aspect of it, it's not the cousincest or the aunt-nephew bit that peeves me off. It was a common occurrence in the medieval feudalistic society and is still prevalent in today's day and age). At the end of the day, they grew up as siblings. Fighting over which sister gets the “prize” that's Jon Snow is ridiculous beyond measure. We didn't start off reading these humongous books thinking "oh this would be a splendid time to ship an incest otp uwu" like no. the only reason I didn't break into tears every time Jon had a very non fraternal thought while reading is because i knew by then, for sure that they're cousins and not siblings (y'all either never had siblings or think fictional siblings work on a different wavelength). Take it up with the author, demand why he chose this sister and not the other for his fOrbiDdEn rOmancE trope. Grab him by shoulders and shake an answer out of him. None of us asked for this ffs. We reached to a conclusion based on what's there in print, not what isn't and simply assuming that there are hidden meanings or that the narrator is so fucking unreliable that he's naming one and thinking of the other or something equally delusional. Dude's literal last thought was Stick them with a pointy end. Which, by the way, is strictly between Jon and Arya, just like Needle. Just like the quote "Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle". And "What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?" They're all exclusive to them both and them both only.

To all of these asoiaf experts, I'd like to say one thing: For all of his flaws and fallacies, G.R.R.Martin is a brilliant writer. He's not some stupid Oracle of Delphi, sitting in his little ancient greek cave and spewing nonsense and talking in circles. Writers leave out clues in the open, not hide them under the guise of different fucking names for gods sakes.

I'm all for shipping whoever you wanna ship, gods know i have a never ending list- most of them being rarepairs or crackships. But I don't go around twisting canon into something it isn't and subject to mental gymnastics to the point where nothing makes sense anymore. And, read the bloody books before you firmly place your faith in something. Quora/Reddit/Tumblr metas shouldn't be the basis for it. The language is pretty straightforward- if I, a non native english speaker can get it, then so can you.

Cheers.

144 notes · View notes

ben-barnes-is-my-husband · 7 years ago

Text

As Long as We Have Each Other

Part II of the Jonsa Bonnie and Clyde drabble I posted that you can find here

This is EXPLICIT. Also, mentions of violence and death.

They’d barely made it in the room Jon had gotten them for the night before he had Sansa up against the door with her skirt pushed up and her panties and panyhose torn. He made quick work of his dress pants and boxers and then took her in one swift stroke. He pumped inside her fast and hard, his hot breath on her face, her legs up around his waist.

She was screaming for him in no time flat.

“That’s it, doll, squeeze me,” he panted, sweat on his brow. “Scream, baby, scream!”

She couldn’t stop. It was almost reminiscent of the screams from hours earlier…

Jon roared through his release and held himself inside her. “Fuck me,” he whispered. “You’ve got the tightest cunt I’ve ever been in.”

He kissed her and Sansa bit him. He cursed and set her back roughly on her feet. Her skirt whooshed back down around her. “What was that for?” he demanded, wiping away the blood on his lip.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t talk about other women you’ve been in while you’re still inside me.”

“Aw, come on, dollface,” he said with a grin. “There’s no reason to be jealous.”

She kicked off her shoes and picked up the tattered remains of her panties and hose. “I’m taking a shower.”

“I don’t suppose you want company?” he asked and reached out in an attempt to grab her arm.

“I don’t. But I would like some food. Why don’t you go down to that diner we passed and get me something?”

He sighed. “All right, babe. I’ll be back.”

Sansa blew him a kiss and sauntered off to the bathroom.

Stepping inside, she used the light from the bedroom to help her locate the light on the wall. She turned the switch for it on, and looked around the small space. Not exactly a four star hotel, but then they couldn’t afford to draw attention to themselves. With all the money they stole today at that pharmacy, no doubt the coppers would be looking for a man and his dame in some lush setup.

Jon had even taken the time to park his car in the back so it couldn’t be seen from the road. He’d also made sure they’d traveled a rather long distance before stopping for the night. He had been brimming with excitement the second they left that pharmacy. He’d been hard, too, and Sansa had stroked his dick in the car until he’d erupted all over the back of her hand.. She’d cleaned herself up like the lady she was with the tissues they’d filched from the pharmacy.

This time there had only been one casualty. The pharmacist who’d thought he was quick on the draw. He’d pulled a gun from behind the counter, but before he could even point it at either of them, Jon got him right between the eyes.

The blood that splattered was something Sansa could still see when she closed her eyes.

In the moment, she was there with Jon, doing all the things she’d been taught not to do, and it was only when she was alone did she find herself almost...regretting it.

She never let herself go too far down that sinkhole though. It was a long way down and it was too late. She and Jon had been on the run since he’d shot that Joe for pawing at her back in Louisiana.

He’d asked her to go with him and since he was the only man she’d ever loved with any kind of passion, she’d gone. She’d slipped her hand in his and accepted that this was her life now: a life of crime. A life on the edge. A life of thrilling highs and terrifying lows. The lows was mostly fear of being caught out.

Jon though, he worried, but not like her. He made it seem like anything was possible as long as they had each other. He spun tales of how he wanted to keep going right on over to California and find a sweet place for them to settle in and raise a family.

“If we play it smart,” he told her again and again, “we won’t get caught. D’ya trust me?”

She did. God help her, she did.

After she showered and changed into the nightie she’d stolen from a boutique in Dallas, Sansa stretched out on the scratchy duvet on the bed and waited for Jon.

He came in with a bag in his hand. He grinned at her. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“You haven’t been gone that long,” she teased him.

“Doesn’t matter. I always miss you the minute I’m parted from you.”

Sansa rolled her eyes and sat up against the headboard even as her heart fluttered. The bed groaned as Jon sat down beside her and uncovered a couple cartons of food. Hamburgers and fries.

“I had to put the milkshakes down to get the door open.” he said. “Hold on.”

She smiled happily. This was a feast. And just what she needed.

When he returned they dug in with gusto until they’d polished it all off. After, Jon gave her a sweet and salty kiss on the lips and then headed into the bathroom to shower himself while Sansa cleaned up.

She’d just about fallen asleep when Jon returned, wearing only a pair of boxers. He cut the light in the room and then crawled into bed, sidling up behind her and drawing her back against him.

She sighed contentedly as she settled into his arms and let the worry drift away. As long as they had each other…

But Jon wasn’t done with her.

He lifted her nightie over her hip and slid his hand down to her cunt. She moaned as he played with her, rubbing her most sensitive parts and making her squirm and seek more.

When she was close, he lifted her leg over his hip and slid himself inside of her. She felt the fabric of his boxers against her ass and knew he’d popped his dick out through the slit in his boxers. “Jon.” she moaned and reached back to thread her fingers in his hair.

“How does that feel, my sweet Sansa?” he asked huskily in her ear as he cupped a breast in his hand.

“You feel so good, baby,” she said breathlessly.

“So do you, babydoll. So fucking wet for me…”

“Always,” she said.

“Just like I’m always hard for you, eh?”

She nodded.

“This sweet little puss is mine, isn’t it?”

She nodded and slipped her hand down to rub herself. Jon pumped faster and faster, the sound of their skin slapping filling the air, along with the obscene sound of his dick plunging into her wetness.

“Let go, baby,” he muttered. “Come on, baby…”

With a cry, Sansa did just as he asked and let go. After three hard thrusts, Jon grunted and spilled himself inside her. He nibbled at her ear . “I love you, baby. I love you so much.”

“Mmm….I love you, too,’ she murmured.

He slipped out of her and began telling her of the life they would have in California. The house. The car. The tree-lined street. All of this as his seed slipped out of her and she started to fade into a dreamless sleep.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsan #should i post to ao3?#fic

13 notes · View notes

ramblingthoughtsofayoungadult · 8 years ago

Text

Real Cool- William Magnusson Imagine

Requested: No

Warnings: mostly fluff

Tease and cool were the words William Magnusson used to describe Y/N Y/L/N, and the rest of Hartvig Nissen couldn’t really blame him. She had exuded confidence ever since she slinked out of a silver Aston Martin Vanquish her first day of school, wearing a vintage black Gucci jacket with a graphic tiger emblazoned on the back and some of the tightest jeans Oslo had ever seen. She kept a small smirk on her red pout and her mirrored round sunglasses accentuated how unimpressed she looked. It only took seconds for all the boys to fall head over heels for the first year transfer, but William knew that the only guy who could get with Y/N at his school was him. He was the most desired boy in school and definitely the richest, so why wouldn’t Y/N want to go out with him? Well, he got his answer quickly when during break period that day, she wound up befriending Vilde, Noora, Sana, Chris, and Eva while chain smoking.

Though William had apologized to Vilde for treating her badly, Noora still loathed him and would probably paint a bad picture of him for Y/N and he couldn’t have that

“Good luck getting with her now, William,” Chris said through a laugh.

“I don’t need luck.”

Oddly enough, the closer William got to the group of girls, the more his confidence grew. Noora was the first one to notice him when he got close to them.

“Hello, ladies,” William said.

“Hi,” Vilde said almost immediately.

The others were more casual while Noora glared a hole into him. Y/N seemed to look through him behind those mirrored glasses of hers and William definitely didn’t appreciate that.

“What do you want, Wilhelm?” Noora asked.

“Well, I would like to give your new friend a proper welcome to Hartvig by inviting all of you to the Penetrators party tonight,” William said.

By the looks on the girls’ faces, it was obvious they were in but Y/N’s expression remained straight. Slowly, Y/N uncrossed her legs and stood before blowing a mouthful of smoke in William’s general direction, “The new friend has a name.”

“What is it?”

“Y/N.”

“It fits.”

“Why? Because it matches with my beautiful face and body?”

William hesitated and the girls around Y/N looked at each other with astonished expressions, except for Noora, who looked impressed. “Excuse me?” “I’ve been fed that pickup line more times than I can count.”

“Who said I was trying to hit on you?”

“Your eyes; you’ve been using them to undress me since I got here,” Y/N said matter-of-factly. “It’s fine, really, but if you wanted to talk to me, you didn’t have to use my bus as an excuse—just talk to me.”

William couldn’t fight the smile working his way onto his lips. “Wow.” “What? Why are you smiling at me like that?” Y/N asked, running a hand through her smooth y/h/c locks.

“Because you just became even more attractive to me.”

Eva, Chris, and Vilde made audible gasps while Sansa only smirked and Noora rolled her eyes. Y/N’s strong expression faltered for a split second and William knew that she was surprised by his response. She would be his soon enough, no matter how hard she was going to make him.

“I will see you tonight,” William said.

“Maybe.”

That night, William tried to remain as calm as possible during the party, which was in full swing by midnight. Everyone was drinking, grinding, or making out already but in the midst of it all, Y/N wasn’t there.

“Still confident that she’ll come?” Chris yelled over Rihanna’s “S&M”.

“Yes,” William said before sipping some of his whiskey.

“Oh please,” William and Chris turned to see Noora and Eva approaching them, “Y/N’s way out of your league, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t show,” the blonde girl said.

“Are you jealous, Noora?” William teased.

“Why should I be? There’s nothing to be jealous of.”

William shook his head as Eva and Chris “oohed” jokingly. “Keep telling yourself that.”

He pushed his way past them and began weaving through the crowd, looking for the new transfer student. He kept telling himself that Y/N and he were in the same league, but maybe they weren’t. Maybe, for once in his life, William was reaching for a girl that was out of his league—–she did speak four languages fluently, not counting Norwegian.

He was about to give up when the song changed to Tupac’s “Keep Ya Head Up”. In that moment, Y/N strolled into the apartment, wearing a fitted cobalt blue knit sweater, a black leather miniskirt, and patent leather Doc Martens. Her hair was stylishly messy and her striking y/e/c eyes were highlighted by cat eye eyeliner. She glanced around for a moment before her eyes settled on William.

“You look…nice, Y/N,” William said.

“Thanks. You have anything to drink?”

“Yeah, sure!”

William nearly winced at how eager he sounded as he walked Y/N over to the drinks area. Fortunately, Eva was busy making out with Chris; Girl Chris was flirting with some brunette guy; and Vilde and Noora were dancing on a couch so none of them could interrupt them. He grabbed a bottle of Patron from one of the top cabinets and poured half of it into a glass for her.

“Here,” William said.

“Thanks,” Y/N said, before sipping the tequila. “How did you know I like tequila?”

“People talk.” “Oh.”

“And we are friends on Instagram,” William said.

“Oh.” Y/N raised her eyebrows as she took another long swig. “Keep the tequila coming and we can talk more about how much my Instagram feed told you about me.”

“Great.”

About three drinks later, Y/N slyly grabbed William’s hand and made him dance with her in front of everyone. She danced smoothly and on beat and it helped that William wasn’t a terrible dancer either. They danced for about four songs and whenever William could get her close enough, he would whisper different things about her into her ear. Nothing too flirty, but just enough to be a tease himself.

“While that is true, it’s only showing that you know only the most basic facts about me.” Y/N spun around to smirk at him, but there was an unmistakable spark in her eyes.

William pulled her close again, “Really? I know that you have a tattoo.”

“Three actually.” She paused from dancing to show him the small tattoo of a wolf’s face etched onto her left pointer finger. “I promise I got this one before Cara Delevigne so I started the trend, really.” Then, she flashed him the inside of her left wrist, where Ciao, Bella was written in pretty font. “And this one was purely out of irony.”

“But that’s only two,” William said.

“If we can go somewhere private, I can show you the third.”

This was too easy and in retrospect, William shook his head at himself as he cockily grabbed Y/N’s hand and led her to the bedrooms, earning knowing winks and thumbs ups from his fellow Penetrators. When Y/N pushed him onto the bed and straddled him, it took everything for the older boy not to smirk.

“This last one is the first one I ever got,” Y/N began pulling up her sweater, “and I had to get it in a smart place or my parents would’ve freaked.”

“Of course.”

“It kind of represents me and my family in a way, I guess.” Y/N’s shirt was halfway up her torso, revealing more skin to William’s greedy eyes.

William’s hands rested on her hips, his thumbs began massaging the muscles there in circles. “At least it has meaning.”

“Meaning is subjective because all of my tattoos have meanings.”

Y/N kept her eyes on him as her shirt inched higher and higher above her body. Just as William could see a sliver of ink on the front of her left ribs, the door swung open.

“Y/N, Eva’s sick!” Girl Chris exclaimed.

“She’ll be out in a minute.”

“No, I better go now, she is my friend.”

William gritted his teeth as Y/N swiftly tucked her sweater back into her skirt and slipped off his lap. She smiled like a Cheshire cat as she followed Girl Chris out of the room.

“Until next time?”

And that was when William knew that Y/N would be the death of him because though she was completely irresistible, she had this way of drawing him in before kicking him away. For the next couple of months, this game of theirs would continue: Y/N would act cool towards William in front of everyone and tease him at parties or bars. She never kissed him or went far with him though other students at Hartvig Nissen thought otherwise. Her bus group would help her stop rumors though whenever Y/N even looked at the gossiping students, they would cease speaking. She commanded power not only over him but over everyone. Though Y/N’s hold over him was intoxicating, William was growing tired of her games and he brought it up with her at school, during passing period. She was walking downstairs while he was going upstairs.

“Hello, William,” she said.

“Y/N,” William gently grabbed her arm and pulled her aside, “we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Don’t play dumb. We need to talk about us. I am done being jerked around by you and while I am all up for the hard to get game, you’re just playing with me.”

Y/N blinked. “Playing with you? William, I was just having fun and I thought you were too.”

“This is hardly my idea of fun,” William said.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, all right? But I shouldn’t be messing around with you anyway—I have a boyfriend.”

William shouldn’t have been surprised: Y/N was gorgeous, smart, loyal, and fearless. Knowing all this didn’t make his chest sting less though. “Oh.”

“Yeah, he’s actually in town tonight with his band, the Villains. The girls and I are going and you can come if you’re interested.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s open bar and you might get it on an herbal refreshment,” Y/N teased.

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll leave your name at the door. See you around.”

“See you.”

That conversation made it even harder for William to focus in math the next period. How was he supposed to focus on different equations when he could be meeting Y/N’s boyfriend in a few hours? Besides, wasn’t it a strange situation for William to be in anyway? On the other hand, he was curious to know just what the guy who had stolen Y/N’s heart was like and free drinks and drugs were included. Maybe he would go. Y/N was the first girl to give William such a headache from thinking so much.

That night, when William was about to text Y/N just when and where the Villains gig was, he received a text from an unmarked number saying : Hard Rock Hotel, 1 AM, be there.

If that wasn’t a clue to how insane the evening would be, William didn’t know what was. When he got to the famous bar, it was packed with mostly women wearing thin sweater, tight jeans, or short skirts along with heavy makeup. The few men there were either bouncers or friends/boyfriends of the girls who wanted to be groupies and they couldn’t have looked more bored. Y/N was fairly easy to spot: she was sitting at the bar, sipping a tequila sunrise and nodding at something Sansa was saying next to her. William made his way through the crowd over to her. Noora, Eva, and Vilde were talking about bus business a few feet away from Sana and Y/N while Chris was flirting with the bartender. Y/N smirked and sat up when she saw William.

“Hi, Stranger,” she said.

“Hi.”

“You invited him?” Sansa asked.

“Guys need free drinks too.” Y/N handed him a beer. “Plus, he’ll help distract all these wannabe groupies.”

“Glad I could be of help.”

“So, how big are they?” Sansa asked.

“Well, they’re pretty well-known in England since they are from London but someone called them the new Arctic Monkeys,” Y/N said.

“And your boyfriend is…”

“Jack Cash and, yes, that is his real name.”

“Are you telling the story of how you met your boyfriend?” Vilde asked excitedly.

Y/N shrugged. “I can but it is a pretty short story: I met him in a burger place in Camden Town and we argued over whether John Lennon’s death was a conspiracy. He asked me out after that.”

“Very romantic,” Eva teased.

“Very.” Y/N took a long swig of her drink.

Finally, the Villains took the stage and after getting a look of Jack, it was obvious why Y/N was dating him: he was tall, olive-skinned, and though he had an athletic build, the black Runaways tank top he wore showed off his muscular arms. He had the coolest tattoo sleeves out of the rest of the band members and his hair was shaved on the sides but fell against his forehead like black ink. He had a strong jaw and piercing amber eyes.

“You are such a lucky girl,” Noora said just before they started playing their new song.

Y/N smirked while sipping her drink. The Villains’ songs were bass-heavy rock and though most of the people in the crowd stuck to jumping around, Y/N simply bobbed her head and sipped her drink. However, William noticed how intently Y/N stared at Jack only to have the lead singer only glance at her a few times. She would look down at the drink in her hands occasionally but she refused to look too sad. In the middle of the set, Y/N whispered something to Sansa before disappearing into the crowd. William didn’t even have a chance to worry because Y/N returned a minute later, wearing a black backstage pass around her neck and carrying six more in her hands. Immediately, Noora, Vilde, Eva, and Girl Chris returned from the crowd.

“Are those what I think they are?” Eva asked.

“Backstage passes for all of you.” She gladly handed one to each of her friends and when she got to William she whispered in his ear, “You’ll get your refreshment backstage.”

“Fine.”

In spite of himself, he managed a small smile for Y/N. It was weird how upset he was about her boyfriend and how much he wanted to keep a good face for her.

At the end of the show, Y/N led them all backstage into the world of a band. Smoke was everywhere and there were tons of people walking around. Girl Chris and Eva made a beeline for the snack table while Noora, Sana, Vilde, and William acted normal while Y/N showed them around. Finally, they got to the black leather couch where the band members of the Villains were sitting, smoking, and talking to three of their new groupies.

“Y/N,” they said.

“Hey, guys, these are my friends, Vilde, Sana,Noora, and William,” Y/N said.

“Since when did you have guy friends?” Jack demanded.

“Since now,” Y/N shot back, obviously annoyed.

“Uh oh, couple’s quarrel coming in,” the blonde drummer teased as he handed Y/N his joint, “Come on, relax.”

Y/N kept a steady eye on Jack as she took a long drag of her joint before handing it to William. The tension between the couple was obvious and William couldn’t help but feel a little happy about that.

“Jack!” a petite girl with lavender hair sat on Jack’s lap and proceeded to stick her tongue down his throat.

Jack reacted immediately by groping her and kissing her back, making sure to slide his hand up under her thin white wife beater she wore with black leather leggings. When she pulled away, she turned to face Y/N and her friends, displaying a silver nose ring.

“Who are these people?” she asked in a high pitched Birmingham accent.

“Babe, this is Y/N Y/L/N, she’s a good friend of mine and she brought her friends to support us. Y/N, this is Orchid, my girlfriend.”

“Hi, how long have you two been together?” Y/N asked in her smooth American accent.

“Three years. We’ve been doing long distance and I’m studying here in Oslo so I came to surprise him!” Orchid said.

“How nice?”

Most girls would’ve started screaming, throwing things around, or even try to fight Jack or Orchid, but Y/N truly wasn’t most girls. Instead, she remained calm. When William handed the joint to her, she not only took it, but wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Her lips were soft and smooth and though there weren’t any fireworks, there was definitely something there as William kissed back. Y/N pulled away and took a long drag of the joint, drinking in the wide eyes and even the glare she was getting from Jack.

“You were right, Jack, I don’t have any male friends. This is William, my boyfriend. We’ve been dating nearly since I got here,” Y/N said. “Isn’t that right, William?”

William wrapped an arm around Y/N’s waist. “Yes.”

“Good for you,” Jack said through gritted teeth.

“Well, we really must be going now. Nice meeting you Orchid.”

But Y/N didn’t wait for a reply as she turned and walked through the backstage exit with William in tow as well as the other girls following.

“That was amazing!” Noora exclaimed. “The look on his face was everything.”

“Yeah, you are my hero!” Vilde agreed.

“Thanks,” Y/N said, but her tone was a lot lower than usual.

“Are you all right?” William asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. He’s just some Alex Turner slash Zayn Malik wannabe. They couldn’t even buy a slot at Coachella anyway.”

William nodded but he could tell that Y/N was hurt by the way her eyes drooped and her pout became more prominent. “I could beat him up for you.”

“Really? You’d get in a fight for me?”

“You just have to ask.”

Fortunately, the other girls were too far behind to hear their conversation.

“How chivalrous of you, William, but he isn’t worth it. I only knew him for about six months anyway. Sorry about kissing you like that.”

“No, it’s fine, do it any time.”

Y/N chuckled and William raised an eyebrow. “Don’t bet on it, but, thanks for playing along with it.”

“A girl like you doesn’t deserve to be embarrassed by anyone, especially that guy,” William said.

Y/N smiled, a genuine smile and it was just for William. “William, I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Or something more.”

Even though Y/N didn’t respond verbally, the coy look on her face gave him enough hope.

#skam #skam imagine #william magnusson #william magnusson imagine

247 notes · View notes

justfollowmyhansel · 7 years ago

Text

October 19th -- Whether You Like It Or Not, How to Talk to Girls at Parties!

I woke up around 9 that morning, it was later than I had intended to get up. I had intended to actually get up an hour earlier so that I could catch up with Miya, pack my bags a little better, and basically get everything more or less ready for the return trip the next day so that I could either choose to bring it all back with me to the hotel before the movie and skip seeing Miya again before leaving or more likely, have more time to hang out with my friend for the last time in what would likely be a long time. But things happen when you’re exhausted. And no matter how much fun I’d had at the Hedwig shows, I was left with a certain sense of constantly having to hurry up and wait basically. That I had to remain within certain areas at certain times so that I wouldn’t miss the show or miss the opportunity that I had come over for. It wasn’t that I wanted to necessarily not go to the shows, more that I was already looking forward to a time that I could come back and have carte blanch to do more things on a less regimented schedule. Or perhaps, I meant a less exhausting schedule. Either way, I was glad that I had decided not to go to Korea to see any of this year’s Hedwig lineup; having long decided that no matter how exceptional the Korean Hedwigs may be, they’d all pale in comparison so soon after seeing lovely John in the role.

I texted Miya when I left the hotel. I was careful this time to not leave much behind despite having booked a second night as I felt less secure in this room than I had in any of the previous ones. Not that the worry was necessarily justified, but I’d rather be overcautious than disappointed later at having something of mine stolen or lost.

There was no immediate reply to my text, but I figured she might not have seen it yet. It wasn’t terribly imminent that she did as it would still take me twenty minutes on the best case scenario to get there.

It ended up taking almost twice as long, in fact, due to my getting mildly turned around for a second and then missing the second train. Early mornings, it seemed, there were not a lot of trains from the station I was at to the one I was going.

By the time I arrived at the station closest to Miya’s apartment, there still wasn’t a reply to my message. Instead of texting her again over Twitter, I tried her actual phone number, figuring that perhaps she might hear that sound louder than the notification on her iPad. I was beginning to get a little worried as I myself was over an hour later than I had meant to be.

I got turned around a little on the bridge coming over one of the streets. A nice lady helped me to figure out which turn I had needed on that particular fork-in-the-bridge that I hadn’t remembered from a few days previous. She said that she wasn’t sure where the street was that I was going to, but I assured her that I knew where I was going once we got down the elevator. This was the part of the journey that I had done most often and with the exception of a slight curve and then a final turn onto the street I wanted, it was a relatively straight shot.

I opted to go to the 7/11, both because I wanted to get something for breakfast, but also because I wanted to kill a little more time and give Miya more time to see my message, if she hadn’t already. I picked a few things out from the selection available and skimmed over the other sections again like I hadn’t really had a chance to since my first night. It was funny seeing how much my time in Japan had revolved around convenience stores, but it was fitting in a way given the weird enjoyment I had gotten from them back home too.

I paid and as I was standing outside, finished the strawberry-banana protein shake that I had bought to compliment the other, more substantial, things that I had bought for breakfast. I knew I hadn’t had enough to eat the past couple of days and an easy, if mildly unhealthy, way that I fixed that back home was through protein shakes. The logic was that they’d semi-quickly help replace the nutrients I hadn’t been having and hopefully stop the unending feeling of hunger that often came from the equally unending amount of hours that came with having three part-time jobs at once.

Miya texted me just as I was about to set out saying that she had also overslept and was I still on my way? I replied that I was and that I was at the 7/11 and did she want anything for breakfast? She didn’t and asked me to stay there, saying she’d come to get me.

When she arrived, I offered again to buy her breakfast if she wanted, but she declined and we went back to her place.

We caught up a little on the past couple of days, how the last show had went, what she had thought of my various texts to her.... We looked at some of the things that John had posted to his Instagram account that I couldn’t get to play since they were posted when I was away from the stunningly high quality Wi-Fi of the Hotel Grand Fine.

Miya gave me the last ticket, this one for How to Talk to Girls at Parties. She mentioned that it wouldn’t be the closest seat, but given how relatively small the theatre was, it should be closer to screen than I had been for some of the Hedwig shows. I thanked her again for getting the ticket for me and showed her the things that I had bought in Osaka. Since she had never been, I told her a little of how I thought Osaka compared to Tokyo and we talked a little bit more about her hometown in relation to both of those.

About four hours before the movie was due to start, I started getting ready. First taping down my chest so that I could be in semi-boy mode for the movie and then picking out which shirt I wanted. It was going to be a little bit colder than I had anticipated and I opted to put my silky black button-down over top of the Union Jack t and started in on making my look as punk rock as possible.

I decided that with the denim blue lipstick, purple gloss, almost deliberate eyeliner (albeit punk eyeliner cribbed from the director’s look at Cannes), and neatly drawn black star, it needed to be fucked up a little to look properly punk. I used the white of the eye shadow palette to create a minimal amount of shading and then put subtle, blue smudges all over my face to look at though I’d been mucking about with chalk before coming to the premiere. After I did the first round of hair spiking and did up my tie deliberately haphazard, I knew I had a decent look. One that almost could have stepped out of 1979 itself were it not for the two buttons pinned to the look promoting the film.

I had already asked Miya if I could please leave the majority of my stuff with her and get it the next day before boarding the plane. Once again the generous host, she agreed.

The instructions for getting to Shinjuku were almost the same as the ones to get to Shibuya -- in fact, Shinjuku was one or two stops before Shibuya on the same bus route so leaving from Miya’s felt almost the same as going to a Hedwig concert.

On the train, I plugged in my mp3 player, trying to self-curate a punk rock mood before heading to the show and skipping over anything not suitable to stop an alien invasion so not now John Barrowman, so long to the cast of Chess, it was a majority rule of hard rocking Bowie songs, a greatest hits of Slade, and as far towards heavy metal as Queen managed in their fourteen record career. And of course, all The Runaways that my recently purchased Sansa Sport Plus thought fit to throw at my ears.

I’d like to say that the relatively simple walk through the train station caused me minimal wrong turns, but between unclear Maps and wanting to walk through another underground Japanese shopping center just before my favourite holiday, I ended up looking at all of the shops. And going to another Daisco. Because, of course.

At the Dasico, I purchased more stationary type things, a pack of Hello Kitty bags to organize my jewellery back home, and a package of chocolate covered espresso beans because why not be as amped as possible to go see your favourite actor announcing his new film?

I arrived out on the street with still close to two hours before the movie was due to premiere. The reason I’d even arrived that early was to hopefully -- possibly -- manage an in-person glimpse at John as he arrived, possibly filming a video like the ones that had flooded Instagram and Twitter of his and Elle Fanning’s arrival to the showing at Cannes. Ones that showed an almost coronation of punk and the elegantly anarchist way the lead actors and supporting aliens had descended on the relatively reserved film fest.

On my path to the theatre, I saw a KFC and numerous, actually Japanese restaurants, along with billboards advertising wares by Sony and Yahoo.... Just the marketing alone was fascinating to me. Seeing how many places still saw Yahoo as a thriving brand when in the U.S., it was almost considered a joke for how many times in the past few years its servers had been hacked. Plus, the still very 90s styling to the logo.... I almost expected to see the AOL Man advertising high speed dial up two electric billboards down from the giant red Y! of the Yahoo logo. (Note -- the North American and UK branches of Yahoo rebranded to a not-quite-royal purple some years ago and had long since moved past the ‘Y!’ logo.)

It took me easily six passes to find the theatre even after I was on the right street. It just didn’t look like a movie theatre to me with the clothing store beside it and the multi-level garage on the other side.... To me, it looked more like an extension of the clothing store. And after going inside the movie theatre, I noticed that the two buildings were in fact connected.

I was there for what felt like forever before people started showing up with cameras and tripods. Invariably, they’d go over to the table that had been set up with books and t-shirts from the film, talk to one of the four people behind the desk and then go wait on the stairs. I wondered if I had somehow managed to actually be at the right place. If John would be delivering his press conference out here for some reason or if the publicist wanted to have footage of him walking through the crowd up to his show; again not unlike in Cannes. My heart was almost beating out of my chest as I waited, pulling out my phone to distract myself and to text my friends with updates as to what was happening.

It wasn’t long before the reporters were ushered upstairs and shortly after their exit, I went up to the same desk to ask if I could have one of the glossy press books. I presented my ticket and was told to wait for another few minutes before I would be allowed up, that the movie screening was on the 4th floor, and no, I couldn’t have one of the press books since I had a regular ticket.

I waited a couple of minutes before heading upstairs. And then once upstairs, waited for the okay to go up more stairs to the actual theatre.

You could tell that this was an important event for the theatre, not only were the posters for the movie on every level -- a movie that wouldn’t properly open for another month and a half in Japan -- but they had a small space set aside in their museum of film, already starting to be filled in with promo art and graphics and later to be filled in with costume sketches and a brief history of what exactly the punk movement was at the time the movie’s set. And of course, that despite only having one screening that day, that was the only film that particular screen was showing at all.

The fourth level’s poster slots were entirely given over to HtTtGaP and following them down one narrow hallway to a second and then the final third, I entered the theatre. According to John, Ataru was there, having someone secured a position way above everyone else and by herself. A position he referred to as making her an ‘empress’ and teasingly instructed everyone to bow down to their new empress.

In the pre-movie speeches, John talked about his inspirations for the movie, where he had come from in terms of approaching it and what interested him in this movie. He talked a little about how Neil Gaiman’s younger self factored into the storytelling, but not as much as he had in previous interviews. He talked about the filming process, what it was like working with Nicole again and how they as a team came up with her unusual accent, how he’d say her lines in a particular way and she’d copy him perfectly for the filming. At the end of the intro, one of the actors who had previously played Hedwig came out and Koji talked a little about what Hedwig meant to him and how he had met John on one of the previous times John had come to Japan. They improv’ed singing a little bit from The Origin of Love before taking press photos both with and without the large card with the light pink key art for the film.

In an unusual turn of events, this particular screening had no previews. The studio (Studio Canal) opting to not promote any of their other upcoming films beyond Girls. What was less unusual was that the film was subtitled instead of dubbed and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a huge consideration as to why I had ultimately wanted to come to the screening. Had the movie been fully dubbed in Japanese, I don’t know that the urge to come see it (and John) would have quite been as strong as so much of the film would have been lost on me since by the time it was announced, I knew for sure that I wouldn’t have enough Japanese to actually understand the film.

The film itself was cute and wonderful, somehow hitting all of John’s trademarks as a director while like all of his previous films standing out as something all to itself. The film it’s probably closest to of his past ventures is Hedwig, which makes sense given the punk rock trappings of this film vs the glam rock hallmarks of Hedwig, not the least of which is a repeated joke from John’s 2015 turn as Hedwig on Broadway that while originally directed at Hedwig’s husband Yitzhak, now found itself turned at En’s mother.

At the end of the screening, I wasn’t in any particular hurry to leave. I didn’t think it was likely that either former Hedwig would come out again to say something to the audience or that the translators might have more notes, but given the choice between extending my self-sufficient, punk rock night or heading back to a small hotel room without a private bathroom, I opted to linger a little longer; moseying down stairs, languidly heading over to the concessions area and finally ordering for myself a set of french fries. As it turned out, ordering a set of fries might have turned out to be the most coincidentally wonderful part of the day.

As I made my way outside and readied myself for the potentially glitchy way back to the train station, I noticed a small queue of people standing and waiting alongside the opposite wall from the theatre entrance. Curious, I added myself to the line, wondering what we were queueing for. Was it a bus? Or was it John? I decided that it was still early enough in the night that I had enough time to find out. And as it turned out, it was!

I only managed to see John for the briefest of moments before he got into his car and it pulled away, but it was a last minute thrill that made the few minutes of waiting outside more than worth it.

After that brief bit of excitement, I started out again, passing by a surprising amount of British and Irish pubs. I considered stopping in and having my last meal for the day there instead of at the McDonald’s like I had been planning, but not knowing how long I’d want to linger with my food, I decided to head to the McDonald’s by the hotel and not risk not being able to catch the last train back to where I was staying.

I had chosen the McDonalds because of how ubiquitous they are to Hedwig’s text. No matter where in the world the story is being told from, she’s always dreaming of western liberation because of the smell of a McDonald’s. It seemed fitting then that I would actually end up going to one for the first time after all of my Hedwig adventures had been completed for the year. Very briefly after the last performance, I had considered going to October’s Mattachine because how could I pass up the chance to combine my favourite actor with my favourite holiday after I was already combining my favourite holiday with one of my favourite countries? But ultimately, that idea was dismissed because it was just too close to when I’d be getting back from Japan and even if the sudden repeated air travel wouldn’t have been potentially too much, I wouldn’t have been able to give either of the two jobs I had decided to keep enough notice that I wanted more unpaid vacation days.

At the McDonald’s, I ordered yet more fries and a burger, sitting in the corner by myself with my food and basically just processing what had happened in the last few days while waiting for my friends in the US to get up. Before I left, at almost 1am, I took off the very well-stuck banadage from my chest. It took a lot of water applied to the seams to get it to peel off semi-nicely and even then, my chest was raw. I was glad that I was taking it off at a time of night that no one else would likely need the single occupancy bathroom, but I resolved that this would be the last time I resorted to this sort of binding. As soon as I got home, a regular buckle or clasping binder would be purchased and that’d be the end of that until I got top surgery.

I walked back the short distance to my hotel only to be met with a closed and locked door. Funny... a curfew wasn’t something that I had remembered on the website when I booked it, in fact, curfews were one of the main things that I was eliminating hotels for.... But stringent planning or not, I was still locked out of the hotel in the middle of the night with no immediately obvious place to go.

I went up to the closest convenience store where an Indian man who happened to speak English recommended that I try the police station to find out what hotels might still be accepting bookings at this time of night and pointed me in the direction I needed. Since it was in the direction of the McDonald’s, that’s the way I went, figuring that as a third tier plan, if nothing else worked, I might be able to steal a booth until I could go return my key to the hotel and go to Miya’s to beg her to let me sleep on her floor for a few hours before the plane left.

Luckily, one of the hotels on the way was still open. I went in and explained my predicament asking the man manning the desk if I could still book a room. He said yes, showed me the price, and then gave me a key once I had put the room on one of my cards. I went upstairs and despite the same lack of accommodations that the other hotel had had, felt much more secure than I had a couple of blocks up the road. I fell into an easy sleep, still in my puck rock gear from earlier that night.

#travel diary #travel diary japan #japan day 9

0 notes