#you lovelies deserve to have your boundaries respected and your love and regard returned in equal measure

[sabraeal]

hi! I'm still a bit shy (which is why I'm on anon) but I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely adore your stories!!! Your obiyuki helped me through a hard time in my life and I will never not be thankful for that <3 sending you lots of love!!

thank you so much nonnie!!! Certain fic have certainly kept me afloat in the hard times, so I'm always so happy to know I can pay that kindness forward to others

[questing-wulfstan]

One thing that is so precious and important to me about Hob's character, is his utter regard for Dream's boundaries.

You may call him an idiot for not seeking any more intel on the entity that has apparently made him immortal without his express consent, and that is fair, but to me that is a deliberate choice on Hob's part.

At first, Hob's not even aware he's been made immortal and may have a price to pay for it, and once he does, he expects to be told of his debt when he meets the stranger in the tavern of the White Horse, one hundred years from 1389. Yet on their first agreed-on meeting, Dream does not corroborate Hob's dread for his integrity — of soul and of freedom. He remains entirely cryptic, but encourages Hob to take full advantage of his prolonged life, if only he'll report on it to Dream once a century.

From there, Hob doesn't feel the need for intel on his stranger so as to devise safeguards against him leveraging Hob's immortality against him. There's also in him immense recognition to the stranger for having turned him immortal, and demanded so little a price in return. Whatever his reasons might be, his own anonymity flagrantly matters to Hob's stranger, and it wouldn't be fair to his benefactor to dismantle it behind his back.

Obviously that does not deter Hob's natural curiosity for all things — as well as his desire to get closer to the stranger — from enquiring, but that only shows his contentement with what Dream is willing to give away about himself throughout the centuries.

Now you're going to tell me that running after Dream claiming that they are friends disregarding that Dream's just denied it in 1889 isn't very boundary-regarding of Hob, but I think he has a very different perspective on the event than Dream, and us readers/viewers following Dream's POV, do.

The problem is that Dream knows himself to be (and I quote) "one such as I", and yet how much he has in common with Hob. Hob doesn't.

What Hob means when he calls Dream his friend, is that Dream has given him exactly what he was willing to give him, and shown himself exactly how he wanted to be perceived by Hob, and that Hob's fallen in platonic love with that, with what he assumes is Dream's most authentic self, rid of what taints him in the eyes of the people who know "more" about him. He means "you might have done terrible things that have irremediably skewed your relationship with people that used to love you, but I love the person you've shown yourself to be with a blank slate. I've shown you all my own flaws throughout our acquaintance, you've helped me grow and become better and I don't believe you to be flawless, but in whichever way you may be flawed that you hide from me, it cannot eclipse how much I love you. And I want you to be aware of this. "

Obviously, Dream and us are well aware that "one such as I" refers to him being an Endless, but to Hob it can mean a number of things, and namely, I believe, "I who have done something so unspeakable it cannot be repaired nor forgiven by anything or anyone."

That is why he allows himself to run after Dream and assure Dream that he'll be here in a 100 years' time and if Dream's here then too it'll be because they're friends. He thinks Dream is so lonely because he was deprived of love, and doesn't allow himself to accept now love because something he has hidden from Hob makes him unworthy of it in his own eyes, and Hob is claiming that no, his stranger deserves Hob's friendship and that Hob will patiently wait for him to come to term with it, even if it takes him a century.

Hob just does not and cannot guess that what weights so heavily on his stranger's shoulders and consciousness is his mantle of Dream of the Endless.

In conclusion, Hob Gadling king of respecting boundaries 2K23

[alyjojo]

Advice to Work on Yourself ⚽️ in July 2023: Scorpio

5 Wands - Knight of Swords - Ace of Wands - 6 Pentacles

Regarding: 3 Cups

These are a lot of cards for a simple message. There is a certain group of people you like to spend time with, could be literally 3 or more, could have an Aries in there that you’re dealing with. Or not. Assuming you’re the one with this issue, there are ego games being played in your friendships that are causing problems. It’s coming out as Devil energy, which feels like it’s unconscious to you. You know you do it, but you don’t know it’s toxic, and you don’t see how others are affected by it…you just think you’re being sneaky and people can’t see through the ruse. They can 💯 It’s affecting your friendships.

This makes a lot of sense if you’re dealing with other Mars signs, cuz that’s what you all tend to do, compete. Could be fire too, and it could be them doing this, not you. Someone likes to brag, big themselves up, talk over everyone else, it’s like a competition on “who is the greatest”, or the alpha loudmouth, something like that. You can’t get a word in, or others can’t. Everyone is trying to prove that they’re better somehow, bringing things to the table in such a way as to make the others jealous, it’s just one big ego trip. Or someone is feeling this way about the rest. To the point the love is not showing, it’s not what’s most important, it’s just a bunch of petty people trying to prove something…and all they’re proving is they’re not friend material, simply because of how they’re communicating. Or you, the advice is for you so a lot of Scorpios are the ones with this issue. And for others, it’s simply to pay attention to who isn’t clapping for you.

Queen of Cups shows you actually are a very good friend though, and whoever you’re dealing with are people you do love, very much. You can’t get a better friend than this Queen, she’s very loving, mature, kind, always there for not just her people but anyone she can be a friend to or kind to in the moment. All of your advice cards are showing you needing to “get a grip”, by way of being an example. Elk wants you to stand tall with dignity, and The Emperor shows a need for discipline, authority, and boundaries regarding communication. Basically, you’re better than this and you know it, you just need a reminder. If you’re up against this personality, then this is the advice for the behavior you should be showing them. Or even discussing these things directly and confronting the problem child in this group, in order to be like hey, I’m not gonna put up with this, I don’t deserve your jealous bs.

You want to keep this person as a friend, they’re fun, exciting, and make you feel good. You should be inspired to be a great friend too, and not let them trigger you so much. Because what can they even do? You should be an inspiration to those around you by being cool, calm, collected, and wise, like the best Scorpios are. There’s a vibe here of you not even wanting whatever it is they’ve got, so what is the real issue here? Their attitude 💯 Or yours. Someone acts snotty and in return the other gets defensive, it’s back and forth on who is better, smarter, more clever, etc., nonsense. If you’re dealing with a blabber that loves to blab, you’re being told to let them. Wait your turn. You’ll learn a lot more by listening, and then wait for them to finish, and add your own flavor or stories to the conversation. I get these relationships are actually very good, there are just some issues getting along that need work, or are heading down a not so good path if it continues.

Animal Oracle: Elk 🦌

“Stand tall and maintain your dignity no matter what, and others will treat you with the respect that you deserve.”

When you’re in a cycle of life where you feel you have to struggle to avoid feelings of defeat & despair due to circumstances pressing in on you from all sides, you need to literally straighten up to your grandest upright posture. Not rigidly, but relaxed, head up, shoulders straight, feet planted firmly. Try slowing down your usual speed, and keep your focus in the present moment. You make more of an impact on your environment when you’re in your physical and psychic fullness, and your moods & sensitivities will shift accordingly. Standing tall, relaxed, and fully present, you’re more likely to command respect from others. This will help you in any situation, but especially any where your dignity or self respect feel compromised. This isn’t pride, but a physical expression of strength and power, and your mood will act accordingly with your body. Some of you are simply the ringleader that needs to bring this issue to the light and get everyone on the same page. Kindly ❤️ This is also saying one of you could be planning to do something unfair to the others, and an equal exchange of love & kindness needs to take the place of competition or jealousy. It’s also possible you told someone you were going to show up, and then didn’t, but didn’t say anything either, and that’s unfair to your people because you’re planning to let them down, it’s not “something happened”, which is understandable and forgivable.

Artist Oracle: ANDY WARHOL

- Eat dessert before dinner.

- Give your 15 minutes some time.

- Wanting can be better than having.

Advice:

- Encourage Your Loved Ones

- Plan For Your Financial Future

Charms:

Courageous ♈️ on 3 Cups could be the people you’re dealing with, especially fire signs that take what they want and sometimes don’t care about the input of others, they can come off as quite selfish or all about themselves sometimes. Which is irritating to a Queen of Cups, who is kind and often willing to do what others want, but needs to be heard sometimes too, fair is fair. In that case, you have to stand up for yourself. If these issues are your own, then it takes just as much courage to face your shadow side and not only get a handle on it, but approach these things with other people so you’re all on the same page moving forward. I don’t see apologies needed, just if you’ve been acting in one way then you can start acting in a more mature way instead, and others are likely to follow suit. If they question, address it…like “I realized I’ve been awfully defensive or insecure and I don’t need to be, or want to be.” That’s enough 😊

Star of Fame 🌟 on Ace of Wands is what should inspire you, and in turn, inspire others. Queen of Cups. She is very kind, mature, wise, soft in nature, but her hand is over her cup of emotions and she doesn’t just pour them out for anyone, though she is very kind regardless. She protects her heart & her interests, while caring for everyone closest to her too. Balance. This could also be a legitimate thing someone is doing, probably something creative being wands. Art? Music? Writing? Something fun, full of passion, if someone is putting everything they have into something, their friends should be encouraging this. Compliments mean the world to people, even the greatest artists think their work is meh.

Owl 🦉 on Encourage Your Loved Ones is simple enough. Don’t be triggered by the success of other people, applaud them! You would want to be applauded too. Everyone deserves to shine sometimes, no one wants to be put down or feel like others around them don’t really want them to be happy or succeed. I don’t get that you actually wish ill on others, but it may be coming off that way. Or someone else is making you feel this way and you should say so. Because you love them, and why are they being like this towards you? They may not even realize it, same as some of you.

[meangreendmmachine]

I’ve never been much of a journaled but I’ve heard it helps to get your thoughts down so that they don’t constantly way you down. Well my current thoughts and emotions are like a noose around my neck and my thoughts are quickly dragging me under into the dark depths of depression.

What is the cause of this malady one may ask? But love and a girl! A girl that was once held in such a high regard is now just another to use me. It’s probably my fault, my complete and total lack of being able to set boundaries and always wanting to please someone. And it hurts when you finally realize that they’ve been praying on your feelings and using you just because you thought the world of them. I would’ve done anything for those two. I would’ve given the world if possible so that mother and daughter could be happy and safe but you cannot force these things upon people and at the end of the day you have to value yourself as well. I can’t keep giving and giving and getting nothing in return but a door slammed in my face. It’s time to move on and take this lesson to heart. I’ve been hurt and used more times than I can count but I shouldn’t let it turn my heart cold. Be wary, sure but if you’re always worried about the next betrayal, you’ll never be able to trust anyone enough for it to matter and that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to close off my heart and be a heartless asshole. But I do deserve the same level of respect and support that I’m putting in in a relationship, whether it be romantic or friendship. In this case I poured my all into it. Yes I was probably overzealous in my attention but she kept talking to me and wanting to be around me so I thought I was doing something right. And then overnight it seemed to stop. No more calls, unanswered texts, the only thing I had heard coming from her was how she didn’t see me that way and it went from me knowing where I stand to walking on egg shells. And it hurt. I grew close to someone for months and got a small window into her life and she got one into mine as well and the thought came to me, “I could spend my life with this person. I can’t remember a time Ive been happier” but for it all to just stop is what hurt the most. I shared a lot with her. Told her fears and dreams that I hadn’t shared with very many people. I let myself be vulnerable for the first time in many many years and it got thrown in my face. Everything I did seemed to be looked at through the lens of I was just trying to get in her pants, but that was one of the last things on my mind. I honestly just wanted to spend time with her and now I’m only called upon when needed and that hurts too. I’m tired of giving my all to someone who doesn’t appreciate it and I do deserve better than that.

[theambitiouswoman]

How to become a high value woman

To be clear, every single one of you are valuable and deserving of all the love happiness and joy in the world. Understanding this means all you need to do is embrace your worth and carry yourself in a way that will attract all of the things you deserve.

Becoming a high value woman is the best thing you can do for yourself and your goals. Being high value doesn’t revolve simply around looks. However remember that being attractive is about feeling attractive on the inside and your health, physical, mental and emotional contributes a lot to this. Once you are fully aware of your value you will only surround yourself with those who value them in return. You are respectful but assertive. Loving, but have boundaries and exude femininity, class and a high self esteem. A high value woman isn't waiting for a man. She might want one, but she doesn’t need one. She is busy chasing her goals. This is incredibly attractive to men who by default are hunters. 

1. She has goals Having goals is incredibly important. Not only do they keep you focused but in the process of pursuing them you're also evolving into the woman you have always wanted to be. By working on your passions you end up leveling up, mentally, physically emotionally and financially. All of these things are by products of following your dreams. 

2. She has high standards When you have standards, you know what to accept out of not only your life but other people. You also know your limits and are particular about who you let into your personal circle. You are not a “Crowd” type of person so you're cautious about the company you keep. You also want people you can grow with and in turn help you grow as well. She's not into toxic, negative situations or people. 

3. She takes care of her appearance When you feel good you look good and vice versa right. Taking pride of how you look, making sure you look clean and polished at all times. Doesn’t matter what you're doing. People address you how you show them you want to be addressed. People treat you better when you look presentable vs when you go out looking like a slob. Taking care of yourself sends a message that you have a high ROI. in fact, the more you do for yourself as a woman, the more a man will respect and do for you.

4. She is socially skilled Knowing your surroundings and how to interact in different settings is important. Social skills are important for everyone. Knowing how to carry your weight in conversations regarding art, music, current events, business etc shows people that you are educated. You have no problem speaking your mind but you do so with class and elegance. You don't do petty arguments because you're above them and if you don't like the conversation you respectfully excuse yourself. 

5. She is always learning Intelligence is one of your best traits. There is always something new you can learn. The more value you can provide, the more valuable you appear to others. 

6. She takes care of her health Health is wealth. Vitamins, skincare routines, exercise and eating right will all make you feel good. 

7. She knows how to manage her finances She knows how to manage her money, how to make money, and knows that investing and saving are important.

8. She embraces her vulnerability A high value woman knows that being soft, while perceived to others as a weakness is actually strength. Being vulnerable means you are emotionally brave so she allows herself to be transparent and authentic. She has no interest in competing with men, but instead embraces her femininity and confidence to express herself on a normal, non dramatic manner. 

9. She is compassionate She displays kindness to everyone she crosses paths with. From friends, to a waiter. Memorable beauty comes from how you treat others so your beauty radiates from within. She cares about people and it comes naturally to her. She cares about the people in her life and is very supportive of others.

10. She is passionate She lives her life in alignment with her goals and values and doesn’t accept any less. She lives a life of abundance because knows that abundance chases her and she attracts it. She loves who she is and what she does unapologetically. She takes full responsibility for herself and the life she wants. 

11. She knows her worth She knows that her worth isn't about her body, looks, attention etc. She isn't needy. She doesn’t need anyone to validate her. She marches to the beat of her own drum. She is aware of her worth and holds herself to it with everything in her life. She doesnt settle for less than she expects for herself and she puts it into practice every day by how she treats herself. This becomes evident to others by how she treats herself, talks, dresses and acts. 

[stormscbrewing]

Where have you been Cody?

Well. If I were to put it in short answers, strictly discord. But there are answers as to why I've mostly or completely reverted to discord roleplay. I've been writing on tumblr since 2015, and what I've seen from the community this year is one thing: toxicity in several forms.

A) The return of elitist, snobby writers.

B) A lack of communication result in soft and/or hard blocks.

C) A LACK OF RESPECT FOR AUTISTIC WRITERS IN THIS COMMUNITY!!!!

When will you return?

I don't know. I don't think I want to in regards to several people I've dealt with in the community this year. In case you're wondering, no, it's not you. Those people don't even follow me/blocked me. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The biggest issue here is lack of communication. Being autistic and a writer in this community is hard. We don't get context. We don't know when we have crossed social boundaries. That's an issue we can't compute often at times, which is why I and other writers have asked people SPECIFICALLY in our rules to tell us if we have. Some of those people pushed us away. Some of those chose not to follow those rules, which frankly, I'm at a point where I'd call it ableist behavior. If you don't like us? That's your issue. But we have rights just as anyone else in this community, and we deserved to be treated with the same respect and dignity. Anyone who doesn't show us that courtesy doesn't belong here, and I could name a few people who haven't.

But I won't. I don't want to fight. I as a disabled individual would like two things, that are basic human decency: respect and accomodations. You are obviously not required to accommodate me for my disability, but it would be nice if you were just honest. We're on the spectrum. We hyperfocus and get excited about things we love really easily. It's not our intention to overwhelm you, but if we are, make it clear. Some of us don't know social boundaries.

I'll repeat it again.

SOME OF US DON'T KNOW SOCIAL BOUNDARIES!!!

I hope that I've made my point clear. As I mentioned before, it's not my intention to upset anyone. I just want this place to be a place of love and acceptance. I've said what I needed to say.

[kaisa-ryo]

— Does he like public display of sympathy?

jujutsu kaisen

Characters: Itadori Yuji, Satoru Gojo, Megumi Fushiguro, Inumaki Toge, Sukuna Ryōmen, Nanami Kento

Warning: English isn't my native language!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

Itadori Yuji

If you want, why not?

He rarely becomes an initiator, since he understands that it is worth doing it at the wrong time - he will disgrace you or put you in an awkward position. Then this sweet boy will follow you for a long time and ask you to make amends. But, fortunately, this happens very rarely.

It is very important for him that you feel comfortable with him and that you can rely on him - because he will be happy to prove that he is the best boyfriend. And if you suddenly want affection or tenderness in front of people, you should not be afraid that you will be called intrusive and spoiled - you just have to tell him, and he will act delicately and caringly. For such cases, you even managed to come up with various gestures, each of which means something: squeezing your palm once - he should stay closer to you, squeezing twice - you are worried about something, three times - you should go home. In general, a pleasant life partner who will not insist that you always do only what he likes, and not what instinct dictates, and will make efforts to make the courtship process pleasant to you.

Satoru Gojo

He just needs it.

He will kiss you in front of all shamans, without asking your consent. Gojo is very important to show everyone that you are together and that you are the best girl in the world. He will treat you with such adoration that it may seem to someone that he is not talking about you at all, but simply shows everyone that you are for him a certain trophy that he alone deserves. But even in this situation, you give him on the back of the head, at which everyone starts to laugh in a devilish way. You make everyone believe that you are the only object of his passion, who can make him descend from his own self-esteem back to earth in any place.

In short, he brags about you to everyone around him.

Megumi Fushiguro

Megumi doesn't see the point at all. If we talk about passionate kisses, then it is unlikely that someone from the nearby will find this cute sight. And most importantly - it still looks more like a lie than closeness. Otherwise, why drag yourself to a meeting with friends, if you could safely spend the evening at home, weaving your love bonds with each other without any extra eyes. Public sympathy is, of course, a beautiful way to attract attention, and, frankly, there is something subtle and at the same time romantic about it ... But this can hardly be called sincerity.

The guy believes that true love is manifested when two partners are left alone, and putting the relationship on public display is nothing more than formal love, the purpose of which is to respect the public.

This is why Fushiguro is the ideal partner in this regard, respecting your interpersonal boundaries.

Inumaki Toge

Yes!

If one of your friends is surprised at how you became a couple at all, if he can't even say a word or does not believe at all that you are dating, Toge will unbutton his collar, put his hand on the back of your head, pull you to him and kiss you on the lips... It will be unexpected for everyone, even for you. In such cases, he resembles a cobra that unexpectedly bites in the hand. Toge is handsome and even, perhaps, a little brutal, in any case - flawless. It was he who at the very beginning made of you not just a beloved girl, but also an object of his pride, which encourages him for his efforts and successes. But brutality is also manifested in the fact that he wants to do everything in his power to ensure that the relationship between you is long and strong, so Inumaki impresses your friends not only thanks to his charm and undoubted advantages, but also to his ability to effectively surprise. Including you.

Sukuna Ryōmen

Public? Is there a difference between the words "public" and "personal"? Sukuna doesn't think so.

You should not take him to friendly gatherings, because he will not restrain himself, he will begin to open his hands and be more frank than ever. Although, leaving home in secret from him is useless, because he will find you anyway. And not because it hurt him, but in order to embarrass you.

God, you're trying your best to hint that he's clearly superfluous here. It's so cute ~

While you drill him with a glance, he will tell everything about your relationship: who fucks whom, who had when the orgasm ended, how you spread your legs to let him in, how you pushed his hands away when he wanted to take you by the thighs to lift you. And much more. He already knows everything about you. You, already furious with his selfishness, drag around the corner to tell him to get out. Sukuna only smirks at this and makes it clear that the more persistently you order him to leave, the more he will like it, because he knows how to make you return home, where you will have the same quarrel that ends with sex.

Nanami Kento

Does she love? Let's put it this way: he like it, but don't get carried away.

There is no need to prove to anyone around that you are in a relationship, because Nanami perfectly shows this without words: she kisses the back of her hand, helps carry heavy bags of groceries and sometimes sneakily casts her sly glances. Your friends admire him and often call him the most reliable guy in the world when talking about you. Or vice versa: they say that Nanami is a hidden bully, and the partner always seems too inexperienced and nice. Nevertheless, those around him treat him well and, according to your observations, even feel indebted to him.

Probably, anyone would envy you in that case, because it is not difficult to guess that Nanami wants to become for you the only one who will make your life happy and filled with love.

[shimmershae]

Some, okay a lot, of pre-mid season (tri? season) finale thoughts.  As if you actually asked for them, lol.

And no, I haven’t actually watched the last episode yet.  I’ve been putting it off all morning.  For reasons.  Reasons that I felt the inexplicable need to put on paper, er, screen.  

If you care at all to read the purging of my fatigued TWD fangirl mind, please look beneath the cut.  Fair warning.  It’s long so pull up a chair maybe, lol.  

I’ll admit it.  The spoilers indicating a significant lack of Carol/Melissa content has dampened much of my enthusiasm and there wasn’t all that much to start with.  

Let me tell you why--

The season, so far, has been woefully unbalanced in favor of the Reaper storyline and the Maggie/Negan conflict (which ties back to the Reaper storyline by the flimsiest of strings) and I’m just not invested.  

Why?  

Well, it’s multifold.  

#1 reason why?  Having a third of the last season ever of TWD devoted to going inside “the lions’ den” of villains I have no emotional connection to or curiosity about is a big fat fail.  

You might say “but there’s the Daryl double agent” aspect and I say “so fucking what” because it was so poorly conceived and has felt like such a WTF set of fraying puppet strings for this plot Angela was apparently jonesing to tell from the GO, damn the torpedoes she had to know where inevitably coming her way.  

Seriously.  I had talked myself into accepting that which I could not change, citing Daryl’s emotional brokenness after Rick.  Convincing myself he’d lost his anchor to goodness and hope and fulfillment in his years of self-imposed exile from Carol and what was left of his family and to a certain extent?  I can still by that explanation.  But really.  It’s the Leah of it all.  

Let me attempt to explain.  

To do that, maybe I should detail how I’ve always perceived Daryl.  

Daryl, IMHO, began this journey with us and the rest of Team Family with a figurative fortress erected around his true, core self.  

He was prickly.  Defensive to any overtures of kindness because he inherently did not trust them.  Loathe to form any real connection to anyone other than Merle, his blood.  

Daryl balked at the possibility of emotional connection and flinched in learned fear from physical touch.  

He did not recognize or accept affection or respect at face value because it was something rarely shown to him before.  

Anybody else remember that childhood abuse book from Consumed?  You know.  One of those first times the showrunners/writers dumped a character nugget in our laps and left it to us to do all the backstory in our own imaginations so they didn’t have to enrich their own characters beyond the scratch and sniff, wham bam this is who they are work?  

Anyway.  We were left to extrapolate from that what most of us h ad already suspected--that Daryl’s formative years were already a living hell before the ZA ever happened.  

So he was standoffish.  He didn’t form emotional connections lightly and physical intimacy was something light years out of his comfort zone.  

Until Carol.  

Daryl’s defenses started to crumble from the very start with Carol because she piqued his interest.  He looked at her, watched her withstand Ed’s abuse, and recognized something of himself.  

Against his will, Daryl started to care and when Carol lost the one good thing that had come out of her miserable life with Ed--Sophia--Daryl’s core identity started to be revealed to us and probably?  To himself after burying it so deep for so long.  

Long story short?  Daryl connected with Carol pretty quickly on a base level through the trauma of Sophia’s loss.  

The real connection, the emotional work it too to peel all those protective layers away took more like--like planting a flower from seed and tending it to help it survive and flourish.  

Simply said?  The work was put in and Daryl bloomed with Carol’s (and Team Family’s) care.  They all put in varying degrees of work but Carol planted the seed of his “belonging.”  

And the thing about Daryl?  Once he bloomed?  He grew strong.  He stretched toward the sun.  

He and Carol essentially bloomed and fought their way toward the sunlight together.  

And little by little, Daryl learned to accept the kindness, trust, and love he always deserved.  

From that newly confident man emerged a Daryl not so fearful of forming connections and none have ever been more powerful than his connection to Carol.  

I’ll spare ya’ll the paragraphs of how Daryl and Carol gravitated toward each other like magnets no matter the means of separation.  

I’ll just spell it out like this:  their bond supersedes all others, even Daryl’s bond with Rick.  And with Daryl only accepting affection from those he trusts implicitly, Carol and Daryl have been the only potential “romantic” pairing that has ever fully made sense for his established character.  

At least the character before Angela launched the grenade of Leah into the mix.  

Leah was a fail from the start.  

And you know what?  I’m thinking that was largely intended (for various reasons) but I still think they could have shown Daryl as receptive to having a “romantic” relationship to those willfully blind to the possibility that he’s actually been in a “romantic” relationship with Carol since Season 2.  Never mind that Carol and Daryl haven’t (yet) crossed certain physical boundaries yet.  Emotionally? They are already there even if neither is able to admit it out loud with the actual words yet.  But I digress.  The people that never wanted to “see” Carol and Daryl as “romantic” because they couldn’t fathom Daryl as seeing Carol in that light had already deemed that Daryl just didn’t feel that way about her, that maybe he didn’t feel that way about anybody (if they couldn’t have their way and have him feel that way about their preferred choice for him, they preferred him alone), and Angela wanted to show them differently.  To show them the light.  

That said, if Angela was so hellbent on doing Leah?  There were a multitude of better ways.  

Here.  I’ll give you one of them.  

Daryl isolates himself from his family after Rick’s “death” same as he did in Angela’s version.  

Carol’s been being pulled more and more to the Kingdom because Henry’s needing a mother figure is like catnip to her hurting natural-born, hurting Mama’s heart.  So Daryl’s anchor to the man he’d matured into, the one with all these earned emotional attachments, is reeled back in, little by little, leaving him unmoored.  

Dog literally runs into him just as before.  It hardly makes sense given how young and floppy and uncoordinated puppies are and thus vulnerable to danger, but this is the least of things we need to worry about suspending disbelief for right?  ;)

Dog and Daryl continue to have these run ins until Daryl decides to retrace the puppy’s clumsy trail and viola!  He finds Leah’s cabin and Leah inside.  She levels the same shotgun at him, they have a standoff, until---

Leah suddenly lowers the gun and incredulously says Daryl’s name.  

That’s right.  One simple change and Daryl and Leah have an undefined past already.  

Daryl doesn’t completely let his guard down because he’s Daryl, but he relaxes enough that we see he doesn’t immediately regard Leah as dangerious to his own well-being.  

From that point on, instead of tying Daryl up and threatening him, we could have been told the story of how they knew each other from before.  

My version goes a little something like this--

Daryl met Leah through Merle.  Merle, in turn, met Leah through the military before he got discharged.  He and Leah had an ongoing “I scratch your itch if you scratch mine” thing and Leah?  Well, she always had a bit of a soft spot/interest in Daryl that Daryl never really returned.  

The thing is, though?  With losing the chosen brother that filled the hole left behind by his lost blood brother Merle and losing Carol to her chasing after a chance of a new family (because she feels Daryl’s out of her reach too, our too blind and stupidly, silently in love idiots)?  Daryl finds himself embracing the shared memories however minimal of that brief past and his grief and loneliness leave him receptive to Leah’s eventual advances in ways he never was before.  

We’re still given hints of their unfolding relationship and we still don’t like it, but it makes more sense for Daryl to cling to the past when he feels he’s lost his future.  

Leah still gives her ultimatum (there’s a reason she gravitated toward Merle in perhaps his most toxic state, she’s more than a little fucked up too) and it’s not as much of a hard sell that Daryl might be pulled in Leah’s direction when he feels Carol is all but lost to him.  

Hell.  They could have even explicitly discussed Carol.  But wait!  Angela would have never allowed that because she doesn’t want to shatter all the crackship dreams in one fell swoop.  

But the story from that point on could have continued just as it has and probably I still wouldn’t have liked it but I could have at least bought it somewhat and understood it.  

Obviously, it didn’t. 

I don’t buy the Leah of it all.  Angela built that “relationship” with monopoly money and it shows.  

Because I don’t buy Leah period.  I don’t buy Daryl giving even giving a shit about trying to or feeling like there’s a snowball’s chance to redeem her so I’m not engaged whatsoever with this Daryl double agent story and him even givign her crumbs about his real family.  

That part rings false.  

So that’s a big problem right there and we haven’t even gotten to the other part I don’t buy.  

You know what else I don’t buy?  

#2?  

Why the hell are the Reapers so bloodthirsty for Maggie’s departure from this mortal coil?  

Without giving better reasoning than they’re just cray-cray, the entire faceplants and considering it’s taken up about 70% of 11A’s focus?  I’m pissed.  

Because, IMHO, they should go big or go home on this to give it any entertainment value because it’s all stale, recycled air if not.  

Maggie’s been established as a much darker character this season.  Which led me to believer the Reapers probably had a legit beef against her, but it seems Angela is reluctant to go all that way down the rabbit hole and doesn’t want to commit to what could be a more entertaining and potentially fascinating story than just Maggie’s in the right, the Reapers are just evil.  

Maggie is right about Negan, IMHO, but she’s also wrong in not listening to him when what he’s saying reeks of simple common sense.  Ignoring sage advice makes her seem more like an angry toddler stamping her feet in defiance than the leader they are so bound and determined to tell us she is.  

You know what?  The window for me to give more than the half a fuck I’m giving right now as they beat this dead horse to dust closed when Maggie decided letting Negan rot in the ASZ jail cell was enough and spared him when she finally had her best chance to end him once and for all.  

Maybe if they stopped having the same damn conversation and they didn’t take up 20% of the screen time left after the boring Reapers/Leah shit, I would be less resentful but I’m not and again, I’ll tell you why.  

BECAUSE.  We are in the last season of the OG TWD ever and this show has chosen to waste screen time on stories nobody cares about to the exclusion of the ones we’re yearning for more of.  

Like ASZ.  We’ve barely seen more than an hour of the eight hours devoted to Carol, Aaron, Rosita, Lydia, Judith, Kelly, Jerry and Co. in total.  Especially since they’ve been trying to establish the Commonwealth on the side, too.  

I mean, I never really expected to dig the Commonwealth so my expectations for it were lower than low so they’ve been exceeded at a miniscule level.  But I expected and hoped for ASZ and those characters we’ve cared the most about to receive much more emphasis and the fact that they haven’t in this last season so far has been the biggest FAIL.  

And okay.  Selfishly, I want more Carol.  She’s like salt.  She makes almost everything go down better.  

But really. Give me more of all the characters we actually care about, please.  The Reapers and the offshoots from that story wheel aren’t it.  I love Daryl but I hate this retread story for him.  Leah is a weak point that pressed upon?  Makes this weak ass arc collapse.  Maggie and Negan are giving us nothing new.  They are the definition of the word STALEMATE and that’s not what you want or need on the finale season of a show.  

Yes, I have enjoyed the majority of the episodes overall, but that was because the moments I loved I weighted more than the ones I didn’t and know they have the most impact on the show down the road.  

Probably 11A will fare better when all is said and done and the show can be binged but standalone?  It’s been an overall disappointment and that saddens me more than I can say.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop rambling now and try to psyche myself up for episode 8.  I’ll be back with thoughts on it later, maybe.  

Sorry for the word vomit, but I felt maybe I could in someway give voice to some of the feelings floating around out there and let you know that you are not alone.  

Until later, lovelies.  

[bluescluelessly]

Ooh for the confrontation prompts—maybe “You only push me away. Let me help.” With Obi-Wan and Anakin?

Obi-Wan isn't sure what he expected by attempting to talk to Anakin now. His assignment to the mission regarding Senator Amidala and Rush Clovis was... a poor choice, in his opinion. If it had been up to him, he would have assigned someone, anyone, else.

Anakin is too close to it, too close to Padmé. He thinks that Obi-Wan doesn't know it, but his padawan has never been very good at hiding secrets.

He doesn't know the full extent of their relationship, but he knows enough to come see how his friend is doing; he knows that something happened and Anakin is hurting, and could use someone to talk to.

Evidently, Anakin doesn't want that person to be him.

Obi-Wan doesn't know what he expected, he really doesn't. If Anakin hasn't spoken of it to him this long, why would that change now? Why did he think-- hope-- that something had changed, that reaching out to Anakin would be met with anything other than the usual closed-off annoyance.

When did Anakin stop talking to him? How did Obi-Wan fail so badly as his Master?

He stands, covering his own inner hurt with squared shoulders and a tight voice. "Then we should have no problems, should we." He knows when his help isn't welcome.

Obi-Wan gives his former student one last look before turning to leave, knowing he's been dismissed.

He knows Anakin wants him to go, and yet, through the clouded force on Coruscant, Obi-Wan thinks he feels a tug; a call to stay, to make one more effort.

Obi-Wan turns back, looking up just in time to catch the hint of regret on Anakin's face, and it steels his resolve. "You only push me away," he says, searching his friend's face. "... let me help."

"You can't," Anakin says, but it doesn't sound like a refusal. He appears to truly believe it, that he can't be helped-- at least not by Obi-Wan. "Not with this."

Obi-Wan wants to just disagree, insist that whatever it is, he will do all he can to help. But Anakin won't accept that and he knows it. "... Maybe I can't, but you won't know if you don't ask, Anakin." After a pause that lasts barely a moment, he continues. "And perhaps merely talking will help. I swear, nothing you say will leave this room if that's what you wish."

Anakin again, hesitates. "You might change your mind once you hear it."

"You have my word," Obi-Wan swears, taking a step back towards his friend. A fragile, foolish hope builds up in his chest. Maybe he doesn’t know when to quit. "Don't you trust me?"

The expression on his friend's face wavers, then falls, eyes downcast and ashamed. He drops onto his bed, sitting down. "I do, of course I do."

Obi-Wan feels equal parts concerned and overjoyed-- finally, finally his friend will speak to him. He keeps his relief hidden away, Anakin needs empathy and his concern, not his happiness.

"Then talk to me," he says, voice quiet and gentle. "Tell me what's going on, and we'll tackle it together."

Anakin is reluctant, but... he does.

He starts small, tells Obi-Wan of the crush he had on Padmé-- for years. He dances around the crux of it at first, but when Obi-Wan shows no judgement or disappointment... it's like a dam breaks.

Anakin starts talking, and he can't seem to stop.

Obi-Wan listens, lending his support when needed as Anakin tells him of his relationship with Padmé, of his secret wedding, of the nights they slip away to be together.

And then he tells Obi-Wan about Clovis, about how angry the man makes him.

It's not that he's jealous, or that he's worried Padmé will leave him for Clovis... it's that the man is a snake, that he's worried Padmé is blinded by her past with him. She's too forgiving, too kind, too willing to give second chances to those who don't deserve them.

There's something more there, but Obi-Wan doesn't push; Anakin knows now that he can talk to Obi-Wan, that he won't be judged. If he needs to talk about it, he'll come to him when he's ready to.

Anakin keeps going, telling Obi-Wan what he saw, how the force is still clouded around Clovis, how it still warns him that the man is dangerous, that he hasn't changed. But Padmé can't see that, she doesn't understand the Force. She'll forgive Clovis and she'll be hurt by him, again, and he feels so helpless. He should be able to stop it but he can't.

He tells Obi-Wan what he saw in her apartment, the forced kiss when he heard her telling him no. He tells Obi-Wan of how he reacted, of what he did to Clovis, of how Padmé asked him for a break, and then he falls silent, as if waiting for a condemnation.

Obi-Wan takes a moment to collect himself. This is no easy dilemma to tackle, but then, nothing with Anakin ever is. "Well," he sighs, "that is certainly a lot."

"Yeah," Anakin half-laughs, eyes fixed on his hands. "Sorry to just, dump all that on you at once like that."

"It's alright," Obi-Wan promises, reaching forward to place a hand on his friend's knee. "It seems like it was good for you to get that out, I'm just glad you did. Keeping your feelings bottled up like that isn't healthy."

At that, Anakin snorts. "It's what you do."

"Yes, well, and I'm the picture of mental health now, am I?" Obi-Wan asks, not afraid to make a jab at himself.

"I see," Anakin returns, a small smile making its way to his face. "So your new teaching method is 'do as I say, not as I do'," and, well. Obi-Wan supposes he deserves that one.

"I am no longer your teacher," he responds, shaking his head fondly, "but yes, it seems I have picked up a few bad habits. Ones which we should both break ourselves of, starting today, hm?"

Anakin looks up, an interested gleam in his eye. "So does this mean I get to hear you spill your guts out now?"

"I was thinking I'd talk to Mace..." Obi-Wan starts, then loses his straight face at the look of incredulous anger that crosses Anakin's expression. "Of course I'll talk to you, Padawan. Just not now. First, we need to discuss what to do about this rather sticky situation."

Anakin huffs, but looks pleased at the promise to get Obi-Wan to talk to him later. "Is there anything I can do? She asked for space, I'm not going to go and force my presence on her when I'm not wanted."

"You're right about that," Obi-Wan agrees, "it would do more harm than good... personally, I think you should trust your wife, Anakin. She's a smart woman, she is more than capable of taking care of herself."

"I know that, but..." Anakin's expression crumples again. "What if she gets hurt, and I wasn't there to protect her? All because I scared her?"

Obi-Wan brings his hand up in contemplation, knuckle resting on his lip and his thumb under his beard. "Just because she's asked for space from you, doesn't mean she must go unprotected. You're right, Clovis poses a danger to her. I can request she be given an escort, or perhaps guard her myself if that would put you more at ease." He squeezes Anakin's knee briefly. "But padawan, whatever happens, you mustn't blame yourself for it. And you must trust Padmé. You are certain that you love each other, aren't you?"

Anakin nods, no hesitation in it.

"Then trust her. When she's ready, she will welcome you back. And she will appreciate you for respecting her boundaries."

"How do you know?"

Obi-Wan looks down now, sighing softly. "Because Satine asked me to leave, too." He's quiet, the wound left in his heart by her loss still fresh, still hurting. "She told me to go, to be a jedi. She could have asked me to stay and give up everything for her and I would have. But she asked me to leave, so I did."

He pauses, still not sure if he regrets it or not. "And then when she was ready to, she welcomed me back into her life."

"But--" Anakin stops himself, hesitates, then continues anyways. "You lost her."

It hurts, but Obi-Wan must admit he is correct. "... yes, I lost her." He says, tired. So, so tired. "She-- she died, yes. But it is better to have loved her and lost her, than to have loved her and hurt her. To have lost her love, or to have never had it at all." He holds back the wave of sadness that threatens to overwhelm him. He needs to be strong now, for Anakin's sake. There with be time to cry later.

"All you can do is love her, Anakin. Love her, respect her wishes, and trust her to be safe. And if even then, she is injured, or lost... there will be grief, but that love won't be gone. She will be one with the force, and the force is with you."

Anakin puts his hand over Obi-Wan's, eyes shut in acquiesce. "... you're right. I know you're right, it's just... hard."

Obi-Wan nods, silently agreeing. "It will be. But you needn't worry about losing her prematurely, Anakin. I will make sure she has an escort, even if I must guard her myself."

"Thank you," Anakin sighs, sounding relieved. "I'd feel better knowing you were with her."

"Then I'll see what I can do," Obi-Wan promises, standing back up.

Anakin stands as well, stopping him with a hand on his arm. "... you aren't mad I'm breaking the code?"

And now, Obi-Wan gives his former student a quiet smile. "It isn't against the code to be in love, Anakin. Just as it isn't against the code to be sad, or angry, or scared. I feel I have been a bad example to you; I held so much back during your training, I never showed you how to process your emotions in a healthy way. We'll simply have to both learn how to now, and we'll work on it as we go." Obi-Wan grips his friend's upper arm briefly. "We'll talk more later, for now, I believe there's a senator who needs protecting."

"Alright," Anakin agrees, stepping back. "May the force be with you, Master."

[kylo-hen]

Super Bloom Part 3

A/N: Sorry for the wait on this one, but she’s up! I’m slowly realizing my star wars encyclopedic phase was a long time ago and knowledge is beginning to seep out of my brain lmao. Hope you enjoy the extreme self indulgence in this because I have no self control

Kylo Ren X Soulmate!Reader (intergalactic soulmate AU)

Summary: Kylo takes you aboard his ship in attempts to acclimate you but how can he show you his life without revealing his demons?

Warnings: Fluff, lots and lots of fluff. Maybe 2 sentences worth of angst if you read into it.

    The dinner was in a word, luxurious, a multitude of different foods some native to this planet others from far off planets in galaxies I had never heard of. There was casual conversation flowing between the elders and Kylo about trade agreements and protection orders. Kylo and I sat side by side at the table and I tried to listen and absorb as much information I could from the discussions.

    Kylo sat confidently, comfortably, next to me his gaze intimidating and relaxed as the men and women around us worked to appease our every need. Kylo’s lifestyle had no room for wanting, if the thought passes his mind it appeared before he even needs to voice it, I wondered how far the luxury extended from his power to mine.

    As the night waned until the moon was high in the atmosphere it’s light breaking through the branches of the grove behind the dining hall, the goblets we drank had run dry, stomachs full from the variety of courses served, and all conversation lulled into peace; Kylo stood. His new position called for the rest of the room to follow in his footsteps, and soon the whole room of dignitaries stood except for me. Kylo extended his hand out to mine, similar to the stance he had in the beginning of the evening. He pulled me gently to my feet, keeping me close to his side as he announced his departure for the night, reaching for his helmet and returning to the state I met him in. The elders surrounding the table bowed their heads in respect for the man at my side and the guards surrounding the room, the ones who had flanked the man the whole day, readied themselves for their new task.

    Kylo ushered me along, keeping a close eye on me even as we walked out of the temple in their secure formation then. The streets after dark housed new beauties for the festival. Large gatherings of people performing with sparks of fire, more loud boisterous music, and lanterns strung over the main stretch of road. Many people laughing, dancing, drunk and in love made whoops and hollers when they saw us passing through. No one dared get in the way of the important men and women the temple was honoring, but their intoxicated minds must celebrate us.

    Kylo seemed particularly tense on the way back, every interaction with the crowd left his senses tense and overloaded, his instincts not ready for the bold people lining the pavement. The shadow of darkness did not allow him any relief, the nature of the city allowing for many vulnerable places for people to strike.

    His tension only melted as we approached the edge of the city, where a large ship laid waiting for its leaders’ occupation. There were men in white armor and blasters stationed outside of the ship, as a walkway descended to the ground, creating an isle up to his world. More guards in white armor descended in two lines and I wondered where they were all coming from, or if they had been waiting all day for this.

   As Kylo led me aboard his ship I felt like I was transported into a different dimension altogether. I had never been anywhere but my small planet, I had barely left the city in all my life. The sleek and simple black and white design of this looked state of the art, unlike anything I have ever seen. There are a couple more people to greet us, him, when we boarded.

     “Supreme Leader!” one of the men addressed Kylo enthusiastically, “Your earlier message made it seem like you would not be returning tonight,” his tone laced with acidic uncertainty, “We weren’t expecting you so soon.”

    Kylo’s gaze hardened in an instant, “My movements do not concern you.” He spoke to the small man who fell back into his rank surrounded by the guards behind him. “Leave us, we’ll have no petty interruptions tonight officer.” With that Kylo made a dramatic turn away from the hoard welcoming us abord, and towards the hallway adjacent to us.

     I followed him quickly, not wanting to invade his space if he was upset but also not wanting to fall behind and be lost on his ship. After travelling down a corridor for some time he came to a stop at a barren doorway that opened without hesitation.

     His room was barren to say the least, it was gracious in dimension but lackluster in any personality. The sterile minimalism extended to all parts of his ship, I wondered if this ship was his home, somewhere he spent frequently and if it was there had been so sign of him before.

    Kylo removed his helmet as soon as the door was secured behind us both, his demeanor shifting to the relaxation under the sun this afternoon. He regarded me with a smile so soft and quick I almost missed it.  I had stepped into the threshold of the room but no further, not knowing how to fit into this part of his life yet. All of my comfort that I retained from this evening had slowly melted away, and it left behind the ebb and flow of the anxiety in my stomach. I stood as still as possible, only a dew steps into his room watching as he moved with definitive purpose, exactly the opposite of my floundering worry.

    He didn’t address me until he began to remove the intricate bindings of his outfit, starting with the secures on his wrist. He looked up and saw my tense fearful body awaiting his instruction with my eyes darting all places in his room before landing on him. He stopped his pursuit of comfort, changing direction to aide my own. The cogs turned in his head for a moment, true vulnerable uneasiness passed over his features as he tried to acclimate me to his world.

   “I had one of my knights bring your things, they should be in the closet,” He started with a practical steady tone, “You are welcome to explore.” He tried with less certainty, his façade falling further with every tactic.

    “Can you show me?” I asked, not recognizing my own voice as it came out of my mouth a foreign cadence that lilted like the music in the market after dark. That lilt must have washed over him like a warm breeze because the trepidation before melted away, a smile graced his features as he moved to show me the amenities aboard his quarters.  

   He spoke softly about the room, which switches controlled which light, stopping at a bare display of buttons that he explained called droids for various services at any time. He showed me the fresher, the small space itself completely foreign to anything I had ever seen. Kylo must have found delight in my ignorance because he refused to tell me how to work the dammed contraption, opting to let me figure it out myself. When I looked up at him in protest his eyes were shining down on mine, full of a joy and passion. There was a third emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on, it was dark, misty, but not intimidating.

    He paused before moving on to show me the rest of the amenities, his hands coming to wrap around me, the first physical contact we’ve had since stepping on the ship. They snaked their way around settling on my back once I was pressed to his front. He tilted his head down, wordlessly asking for a kiss. I obliged tenfold, pushing up to meet his lips with desperation. My hands finding purchase on his cheeks.

    This man lit a fire in my bones, not being able to touch him, to hold him in my arms for as long as I had felt like walking in the desert without water. Now, with his lips pressed against mine, his large sturdy hands keeping me secure, his breathe breathing me new life, his soul intertwined with my own, I was drowning. No, I was basking in his passion for me, his need. His touch, even juvenile, had me floating far from the rest of the world.

     When Kylo pulls back I feel the lack of his heat immediately. The unpleasant contrast from the pure joy before forced a whine from my mouth before I could stop it. My hands dropping to his chest as he moves away from our tight embrace. He didn’t try to hide his amusement with a deep reverberating chuckle sliding out his lips which curled up into a light hearted smirk. His hands moving from my back to my neck, tilting my head up to meet his intense gaze.

     “Don’t get greedy now sweet girl.” He commanded softly, his gloved thumb skimming along my cheek sweetly contrasting his words.

    “I hardly think wanting a kiss from my soulmate is greedy.” I countered teasingly, fluttering my eye lashes and pushing my bottom lip out at him. His body visibly reacting to me calling him my soulmate. His cheeks flushed red and he leaned in like he was going to kiss me once again.

    His lips ghosted mine slowly, his hands keeping my head locked in place not that I would dare move when he was this close, “Say it again.” He asked, a new layer of vulnerability in play with him.

   “You’re my soulmate Kylo.” I whispered against his lips before he gently pressed us together again. Once again there was purpose, there was meaning, light all through my bones because of him. The man that deserved no less than the galaxy, and had it all and more, pressed against me in a fresher because out souls were connected to one another. I was vastly out of my playing field with this man and something about it made me feel like I was going to learn to run before I learned to walk.

    I pulled away from him this time, he hesitated, trying to regain his self-control before moving forward. His grip on my face loosening up as my hands explored his torso softly, trying not to cross any of his boundaries. “You’re…” He looked so conflicted, so lost, unable to say every thought in his head. His mind so jumbled that even one sentence was too difficult. I didn’t push him to say anything at all, he just shook his head and retreated to stand before me.

    “I need to use the fresher before we sleep.” I mumbled, sorry to be changing the subject before he could express what he was thinking. But the smile on his face made my heart shine, he welcomed the diversion away from whatever plagued his mind before.

    “I’ll lay some things out for you in the closet.” He offered, and with a swift kiss to my forehead he left me to my own devices to get clean.

    The fresher had an endless stream of hot water, I don’t think I had ever experienced anything close to this luxury. His soap smelled dark and musky like him, laced with spices that I had only smelled at the market before. The stream of water resetting my mind for the night, giving me time to realize that as enthralling as Kylo was, we needed to talk before doing anything too risqué. The steam that fogged the mirrors had cleared my mind from the soft caresses Kylo bestowed on me earlier.

    He held his promise, leaving out the set of night clothes I had packed and a towel for me. I took the time to ready myself for bed before I emerged into the bedroom. Kylo sat in the bed that looked much smaller with the large man on top of it. He had a datapad and was looking intensely down at the object. He didn’t hear me come in until the doors automatically skimmed shut behind me.

    Kylo’s eyes raked up my form only outfitted in the thin nightgown I’ve worn all of my adult life. He swallowed thickly, discarding the datapad on a shelf next to the bed an welcomed me to sit next to him. I moved slowly, not wanting to do anything that was odd to him or something that maybe only my planet did. It’s becoming clearer that he had a very different lifestyle than I was used to.

   Nevertheless, he pulled back the covers and welcomed me in his normal-sized, yet somehow small, bed. The lights overhead dimmed, but did not shut off and he laid down. At first, we laid separately, an awkward tension hung in the air, keeping us repelled from one another not wanting to break the boundaries. I made the first move, scooting closer to the middle of the bed, which was more like his side due to his large stature, hoping he would do the same.

    “I’ve never been in a bed this comfortable.” I admitted shyly looking up at him as he propped himself up to look down at me. His hand skimmed my arm softly up and down as we spoke.

    “This is nothing compared to my bed in Coruscant,” He began softly his voice lulling me once more into a comfortable serenity, “It’s much larger too, far too large for just myself.” He tested experimentally waiting my reaction.

     “Do you share your bed often supreme leader?” I asked half-teasing, half-terrified of the possible answer. He was handsome, there was absolutely nothing stopping him from taking a thousand different women before me. He could have a wife back home, he could have a concubine, I had never considered the possibility before now. My veins turned to ice while I watched him answer.

     “No,” he ended my spiral with definitive assurance. “There has not been much time for romance admittedly.” His confession is whispered shamefully into the air of the bed between us.

    “Fate has a funny way of changing your plans.” I looked up at him only to find he was already watching me, his eyebrows furrowed but his expression was curious. He was trying to find something in my features but he was not coming up with an answer. “Do you believe in fate?” I asked, startling him out of his concentration.

    “I believe in the force.” He countered, swerving around my question. I cared little about that, realizing what he said. The ancient force myths were rarely spoken of on my planet, and even more rare was it not used as a cautionary tale. The limited knowledge available at the library was biased, and my father kept many of the ‘radical’ copies out of my hands.

     I shot up in the bed, no longer able to stay peacefully laying with him, onto my knees to continue the conversation. “You believe in the force too!” I all but shrieked out excitedly, thrilled about the new avenues of conversation we could research and debate together. “My father always told me they were just old myths! He never let me put any real stock into the stories, but I knew it! If the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy believes it, it must be true!” I rambled out quite loud and quite fast and once I had come to take a breath and look at Kylo he was laughing.

     “Sweet girl,” He chuckled out, adjusting his position to a more active one on the bed, and lifting my chin to meet his gaze, “I don’t want to shock you, but I thought it was common knowledge.” He began.

      “What? The force? It’s hardly common here, no one had time for my fanciful tales anymore.” I rebutted, slightly irritated at the thought of so many people dismissing me and I was right the whole time. The only reason they dismissed me is because I was just a little girl to them. I then realized that I was probably just some ignorant little girl in Kylo’s eyes too. He was the supreme leader of the galaxy and my home planet didn’t even think the force was real. How was I supposed to be Kylo’s equal when I don’t know anything about life outside my own planet?

    “Sweet girl,” He cooed out, bringing my attention back onto him, “You were up in the clouds for a moment,” he shifted forward bringing me closer to him, “I thought you knew, the force is very real, and I am trained to yield it with the Sith lords among me.” He spoke soft in volume but hard in resolution creating an odd tone. Yet the only thing I could think of was that my soulmate, the absolute reflection and completion of myself was a Sith Lord. All the years of reading the myths, of understanding bits and pieces of these Jedi and Sith masters battling to the end of time over freedom and peace and justice now I had one right in front of me. I wondered if he could hear any of my thoughts. That brought me abruptly from my shocked state.

    “Can you really read my mind?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. His worried, and dare I say conflicted position, dropped with the mindless question and he huffed before explaining.

    “I can choose to know whatever I want about you sweet girl.” He spoke mysteriously. My excitement barely quelled by his non answer which forced me back to sitting, hoping he would elaborate. “I can enter your mind without your permission, but its painful. However, when you’re preoccupied with feelings, you project messages through the force, and I can hear those.” He explained slowly, allowing me to absorb the information he fed me by hand.

    “What kind of things have I projected?” I asked plainly.

     “In the library, when you saw me for the first time, I could hear your thoughts.” He spoke slowly with every word a new possibility for my brain to process. “Your thoughts are so pure, so strong my sweet girl.” He finished with a compliment, urging me towards him. I took the opportunity to lay my head on my chest, he countered by tracing my left hand with his right.

    “I don’t know much,” I felt the need to explain myself, “All of my knowledge comes from the books in the library, and most of is too old, or incredibly one sided.” I scoffed at the stances taken in most of the stories about the history of the Force. “You know, you’ve seen much more than I have, more than I ever thought possible.” I mumbled into the chisels of his chest.

     “I’m glad you’ve not seen what I have seen.” His voice holding secrets from demons he had yet to exorcise from his head. “I can’t promise that I tell you everything now, nor can I promise that you’ll like what I have been in my past. I can’t-“ His voice was shaking, his eyes glossed over with the look of a thousand defeats passing through.

     “Will you love me?” I interrupted him, shaking him from the dark road he was heading down, “Will you love me? And be loyal to me? And be patient while I try to learn?” I countered with the love that I knew was imprinted in my soul and matching on his, I don’t need riches, or adventures, or galaxies bowing down at our feet. The universe gave me this man for a reason, and I wasn’t going to give up because of his past. “Will you try?”

    The last one seemed to get his attention, his striking gaze hazed with unshed tears matching my gaze of unwavering support, “Yes.” He answered simply. Agreeing to not be a different man, but to be himself and try something new.

     “That’s all I need from you.” I reassured him, laying back down on his chest, listening to his heart beat calm slowly from the anxious beats before. His breathing slowed immensely, leading me to believe he could be asleep, but the lights weren’t quite off, nor were his hands quite still.

     Just as I was drifting off to sleep, in the odd stage of awake and away his voice rumbled through his chest, had I not been using him as a pillow I’m certain I would have missed it. “Marry me?” it was soft, a timid ask from the man that lay beneath me.

    “Kylo?” I called out, mostly looking for clarification. It wasn’t odd that he wanted to get married to me, not at all. Most couples, after finding their soulmate, got married quickly, not wanting to part from one another. My sister married her soulmate within a week of meeting him, my parents within the month. It wasn’t odd for me, but from what I knew that was hardly the case outside of my world. I didn’t want him to ask for my sake, I wanted him to ask because he wants to marry me.

     “I promise I will try; I will be patient and teach you what you want to know, I will be loyal to you, I-“ he broke off, his voice faltering, but regaining it’s strength, “I will love you.” He stated, confident in his own feelings for the first time. His fingers stilled on my back, waiting for my response.

     “I will love you too Kylo.” I spoke softly, gripping my hand on his arm, bracing myself to look at him. He looked terrified, vulnerable, but he saw me and he looked happy.  “I will marry you.” And despite the long days ahead, and the seemingly endless amount of things I had left to learn about the world that lay before us at our feet, all I could think about is how quickly the man had taken every part of my heart and soul by storm.

    I am completely and irrevocably his and he is completely and irrevocably mine.

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany and Barristan’s relationship

This is a list of all the passages from the books featuring key moments in Dany and Barristan’s relationship (including Barristan's chapters).

In my opinion, this is a relationship that deserves more appreciation than it gets. There are multiple reasons why it doesn't: most of us (myself included) wish we had gotten Missandei's POV instead of Barristan's; most of us (myself included) were more eager to see Dany and Tyrion finally intersect and interact with each other than to enjoy Dany and Barristan's dynamic; D&D chose to focus on show!Jorah's relationship with show!Dany, to the detriment of show!Barristan; Dany/Barristan doesn't leave room for shipping like Dany/Jon or Dany/Jorah or Dany/Daario or Dany/Drogo; certain asoiaf meta writers overfocus on the possibility that Barristan might betray Dany for Aegon (which I don't find likely) or harshly criticize Barristan (since his character development is inherently tied to Dany's actions, criticizing him is a convenient way to criticize Dany herself).

Still, Barristan is meant to be a foil to Jorah in that the former does what the latter was unwilling (or incapable) of doing: he respects Dany's authority and personal boundaries, he thinks that slavery is immoral, he always calls Dany by her rightful title, he praises Dany for her own sake (instead of relating her accomplishments back to a man), he admires Dany for caring about her people, he knows her well enough to realize that she's in love with Daario, he thinks of what she would do when she's away from Meereen before making his decisions and so on.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

She still clung to the hope that someone would come after her. Ser Barristan might come seeking her; he was the first of her Queensguard, sworn to defend her life with his own.

~

And she wondered how much the Yunkai’i knew about what her captain meant to her. She had asked Ser Barristan that question the afternoon the hostages went forth. “They will have heard the talk,” he had replied. “Naharis may even have boasted of Your Grace’s ... of your great ... regard ... for him. If you will forgive my saying so, modesty is not one of the captain’s virtues. He takes great pride in his ... his swordsmanship.”

He boasts of bedding me, you mean.

~

As the world darkened, Dany settled in and closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. The night was cold, the ground hard, her belly empty. She found herself thinking of Meereen, of Daario, her love, and Hizdahr, her husband, of Irri and Jhiqui and sweet Missandei, Ser Barristan and Reznak and Skahaz Shavepate. Do they fear me dead? I flew off on a dragon’s back. Will they think he ate me?

ADWD The Queen's Hand

He stood beside the parapets of the highest step of the Great Pyramid, searching the sky as he did every morning, knowing that the dawn must come and hoping that his queen would come with it. She will not have abandoned us, she would never leave her people, he was telling himself, when he heard the prince’s death rattle coming from the queen’s apartments.

~

At his command, Quentyn Martell had been laid out in the queen’s own bed. He had been a knight, and a prince of Dorne besides. It seemed only kind to let him die in the bed he had crossed half a world to reach. The bedding was ruined—sheets, covers, pillows, mattress, all reeked of blood and smoke, but Ser Barristan thought Daenerys would forgive him.

~

He should have stayed in Dorne. He should have stayed a frog. Not all men are meant to dance with dragons. As he covered the boy once more, he found himself wondering whether there would be anyone to cover his queen, or whether her own corpse would lie un-mourned amongst the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea, staring blindly at the sky until her flesh fell from her bones.

“No,” he said aloud. “Daenerys is not dead. She was riding that dragon. I saw it with mine own two eyes.” He had said the same a hundred times before … but every day that passed made it harder to believe. Her hair was afire. I saw that too. She was burning … and if I did not see her fall, hundreds swear they did.

~

“They await the Hand’s pleasure below.”

I am no Hand, a part of him wanted to cry out. I am only a simple knight, the queen’s protector. I never wanted this. But with the queen gone and the king in chains, someone had to rule, and Ser Barristan did not trust the Shavepate.

~

“The black beast came once, why not again? This time with our queen.”

Or without her. Should Drogon return to Meereen without Daenerys mounted on his back, the city would erupt in blood and flame, of that Ser Barristan had no doubt. The very men sitting at this table would soon be at dagger points with one another. A young girl she might be, but Daenerys Targaryen was the only thing that held them all together.

“Her Grace will return when she returns,” said Ser Barristan.

~

Though he had assumed the title of Hand, Ser Barristan would not presume to hold court in the queen’s absence, nor would he permit Skahaz mo Kandaq to do such. Hizdahr’s grotesque dragon thrones had been removed at Ser Barristan’s command, but he had not brought back the simple pillowed bench the queen had favored. Instead a large round table had been set up in the center of the hall, with tall chairs all around it where men might sit and talk as peers.

~

“You had best guard that tongue, ser.” Ser Barristan did not like this Gerris Drinkwater, nor would he allow him to vilify Daenerys. “Prince Quentyn’s death was his own doing, and yours.”

~

“He offered her his heart,” Ser Gerris said again. “She needed swords, not hearts.”

“He would have given her the spears of Dorne as well.”

“Would that he had.” No one had wanted Daenerys to look with favor on the Dornish prince more than Barristan Selmy.

~

“...Duty brought Prince Quentyn here. Duty, honor, thirst for glory … never love. Quentyn was here for dragons, not Daenerys.”

~

The Dornishmen, Hizdahr, Reznak, the attack … was he doing the right things? Was he doing what Daenerys would have wanted? I was not made for this. Other Kingsguard had served as Hand before him. Not many, but a few. He had read of them in the White Book. Now he found himself wondering whether they had felt as lost and confused as he did.

~

Galazza Galare was attended by four Pink Graces. An aura of wisdom and dignity seemed to surround her that Ser Barristan could not help but admire. This is a strong woman, and she has been a faithful friend to Daenerys.

~

“If you truly think me wise, heed me now. Release the noble Hizdahr and restore him to his throne.”

“Only the queen can do that.”

~

“...Even your own young queen, fair Daenerys who called herself the Mother of Dragons … we saw her burning, that day in the pit … even she was not safe from the dragon’s wroth.”

“Her Grace is not … she …”

“… is dead. May the gods grant her sweet sleep.” Tears glistened behind her veils. “Let her dragons die as well.”

ADWD The Kingbreaker

“One guardsman amongst forty. All waiting for the empty tabard on the throne to speak the command so we might cut down Bloodbeard and the rest. Do you think the Yunkai’i would ever have dared present Daenerys with the head of her hostage?” 

No, thought Selmy. “Hizdahr seemed distraught.”

“Sham. His own kin of Loraq were returned unharmed. You saw. The Yunkai’i played us a mummer’s farce, with noble Hizdahr as chief mummer. The issue was never Yurkhaz zo Yunzak. The other slavers would gladly have trampled that old fool themselves. This was to give Hizdahr a pretext to kill the dragons.”

Ser Barristan chewed on that. “Would he dare?”

“He dared to kill his queen. Why not her pets? If we do not act, Hizdahr will hesitate for a time, to give proof of his reluctance and allow the Wise Masters the chance to rid him of the Stormcrow and the bloodrider. Then he will act. They want the dragons dead before the Volantene fleet arrives.”

Aye, they would. It all fit. That did not mean Barristan Selmy liked it any better. “That will not happen.” His queen was the Mother of Dragons; he would not allow her children to come to harm.    

~

“Daario might piss on us if we were burning. Elsewise do not look to him for help. Let the Stormcrows choose another captain, one who knows his place. If the queen does not return, the world will be one sellsword short. Who will grieve?”

“And when she does return?”

“She will weep and tear her hair and curse the Yunkai’i. Not us. No blood on our hands. You can comfort her. Tell her some tale of the old days, she likes those. Poor Daario, her brave captain … she will never forget him, no … but better for all of us if he is dead, yes? Better for Daenerys too.”

Better for Daenerys, and for Westeros. Daenerys Targaryen loved her captain, but that was the girl in her, not the queen. Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it. Daemon Blackfyre loved the first Daenerys, and rose in rebellion when denied her. Bittersteel and Bloodraven both loved Shiera Seastar, and the Seven Kingdoms bled. The Prince of Dragonflies loved Jenny of Oldstones so much he cast aside a crown, and Westeros paid the bride price in corpses. All three of the sons of the fifth Aegon had wed for love, in defiance of their father’s wishes. And because that unlikely monarch had himself followed his heart when he chose his queen, he allowed his sons to have their way, making bitter enemies where he might have had fast friends. Treason and turmoil followed, as night follows day, ending at Summerhall in sorcery, fire, and grief.

Her love for Daario is poison. A slower poison than the locusts, but in the end as deadly. “There is still Jhogo,” Ser Barristan said. “Him, and Hero. Both precious to Her Grace.”

“We have hostages as well,” Skahaz Shavepate reminded him. “If the slavers kill one of ours, we kill one of theirs.”

For a moment Ser Barristan did not know whom he meant. Then it came to him. “The queen’s cupbearers?”

“Hostages,” insisted Skahaz mo Kandaq. “Grazdar and Qezza are the blood of the Green Grace. Mezzara is of Merreq, Kezmya is Pahl, Azzak Ghazeen. Bhakaz is Loraq, Hizdahr’s own kin. All are sons and daughters of the pyramids. Zhak, Quazzar, Uhlez, Hazkar, Dhazak, Yherizan, all children of Great Masters.”

“Innocent girls and sweet-faced boys.” Ser Barristan had come to know them all during the time they served the queen, Grazhar with his dreams of glory, shy Mezzara, lazy Miklaz, vain, pretty Kezmya, Qezza with her big soft eyes and angel’s voice, Dhazzar the dancer, and the rest. “Children.”

“Children of the Harpy. Only blood can pay for blood.”

“So said the Yunkishman who brought us Groleo’s head.”

“He was not wrong.”

“I will not permit it.”

“What use are hostages if they may not be touched?”

“Mayhaps we might offer three of the children for Daario, Hero, and Jhogo,” Ser Barristan allowed. “Her Grace—”

“—is not here. It is for you and me to do what must be done. You know that I am right.”

“Prince Rhaegar had two children,” Ser Barristan told him. “Rhaenys was a little girl, Aegon a babe in arms. When Tywin Lannister took King’s Landing, his men killed both of them. He served the bloody bodies up in crimson cloaks, a gift for the new king.” And what did Robert say when he saw them? Did he smile? Barristan Selmy had been badly wounded on the Trident, so he had been spared the sight of Lord Tywin’s gift, but oft he wondered. If I had seen him smile over the red ruins of Rhaegar’s children, no army on this earth could have stopped me from killing him. “I will not suffer the murder of children. Accept that, or I’ll have no part of this.”

~

Rhaegar had chosen Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. Barristan Selmy would have made a different choice. Not the queen, who was not present. Nor Elia of Dorne, though she was good and gentle; had she been chosen, much war and woe might have been avoided. His choice would have been a young maiden not long at court, one of Elia’s companions … though compared to Ashara Dayne, the Dornish princess was a kitchen drab.

Even after all these years, Ser Barristan could still recall Ashara’s smile, the sound of her laughter. He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara’s daughter …

ADWD The Discarded Knight

Daenerys Targaryen had preferred to hold court from a bench of polished ebony, smooth and simple, covered with the cushions that Ser Barristan had found to make her more comfortable. King Hizdahr had replaced the bench with two imposing thrones of gilded wood, their tall backs carved into the shape of dragons. The king seated himself in the right-hand throne with a golden crown upon his head and a jeweled sceptre in one pale hand. The second throne remained vacant.

The important throne, thought Ser Barristan. No dragon chair can replace a dragon no matter how elaborately it’s carved.

~

“Is it true?” a freedwoman shouted. “Is our mother dead?”

“No, no, no,” Reznak screeched. “Queen Daenerys will return to Meereen in her own time in all her might and majesty. Until such time, His Worship King Hizdahr shall—”

“He is no king of mine,” a freedman yelled.

Men began to shove at one another. “The queen is not dead,” the seneschal proclaimed. “Her bloodriders have been dispatched across the Skahazadhan to find Her Grace and return her to her loving lord and loyal subjects. Each has ten picked riders, and each man has three swift horses, so they may travel fast and far. Queen Daenerys shall be found.”

A tall Ghiscari in a brocade robe spoke next, in a voice as sonorous as it was cold. King Hizdahr shifted on his dragon throne, his face stony as he did his best to appear concerned but unperturbed. Once again his seneschal gave answer.

Ser Barristan let Reznak’s oily words wash over him. His years in the Kingsguard had taught him the trick of listening without hearing, especially useful when the speaker was intent on proving that words were truly wind. Back at the rear of the hall, he spied the Dornish princeling and his two companions. They should not have come. Martell does not realize his danger. Daenerys was his only friend at this court, and she is gone. He wondered how much they understood of what was being said. Even he could not always make sense of the mongrel Ghiscari tongue the slavers spoke, especially when they were speaking fast.

Prince Quentyn was listening intently, at least. That one is his father’s son. Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful … but not the sort to make a young girl’s heart beat faster. And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to play the innocent. Like all good queens she put her people first—else she would never have wed Hizdahr zo Loraq—but the girl in her still yearned for poetry, passion, and laughter. She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud.

~

Martell was dancing in a vipers’ nest, and he did not even see the snakes. His continued presence, even after Daenerys had given herself to another before the eyes of gods and men, would provoke any husband, and Quentyn no longer had the queen to shield him from Hizdahr’s wroth. Although …

The thought hit him like a slap across the face. Quentyn had grown up amongst the courts of Dorne. Plots and poisons were no strangers to him. Nor was Prince Lewyn his only uncle. He is kin to the Red Viper. Daenerys had taken another for her consort, but if Hizdahr died, she would be free to wed again. Could the Shavepate have been wrong? Who can say that the locusts were meant for Daenerys? It was the king’s own box. What if he was meant to be the victim all along? Hizdahr’s death would have smashed the fragile peace. The Sons of the Harpy would have resumed their murders, the Yunkishmen their war. Daenerys might have had no better choice than Quentyn and his marriage pact.

~

Ser Barristan watched them, thoughtful. What would Daenerys want? he asked himself. He thought he knew.

~

“This Ghiscari lordling is no fit consort for the queen of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“That is not for you to judge.” Ser Barristan paused, wondering if he had said too much already. No. Tell him the rest of it. “That day at Daznak’s Pit, some of the food in the royal box was poisoned. It was only chance that Strong Belwas ate it all. The Blue Graces say that only his size and freakish strength have saved him, but it was a near thing. He may yet die.”

The shock was plain on Prince Quentyn’s face. “Poison … meant for Daenerys?”

“Her or Hizdahr. Perhaps both. The box was his, though. His Grace made all the arrangements. If the poison was his doing … well, he will need a scapegoat. Who better than a rival from a distant land who has no friends at this court? Who better than a suitor the queen spurned?”

Quentyn Martell went pale. “Me? I would never … you cannot think I had any part in any …”

That was the truth, or he is a master mummer. “Others might,” said Ser Barristan. “The Red Viper was your uncle. And you have good reason to want King Hizdahr dead.”

“So do others,” suggested Gerris Drinkwater. “Naharis, for one. The queen’s …”

“… paramour,” Ser Barristan finished, before the Dornish knight could say anything that might besmirch the queen’s honor.

ADWD The Queensguard

You were the queen’s man,” said Reznak mo Reznak. “The king desires his own men about him when he holds court.”

I am the queen’s man still. Today, tomorrow, always, until my last breath, or hers. Barristan Selmy refused to believe that Daenerys Targaryen was dead.

Perhaps that was why he was being put aside. One by one, Hizdahr removes us all.

~

Despite all the queen had done, the sickness had spread, both within the city walls and without. Meereen’s markets were closed, its streets empty. King Hizdahr had allowed the fighting pits to remain open, but the crowds were sparse. The Meereenese had even begun to shun the Temple of the Graces, reportedly.

The slavers will find some way to blame Daenerys for that as well, Ser Barristan thought bitterly. He could almost hear them whispering—Great Masters, Sons of the Harpy, Yunkai’i, all telling one another that his queen was dead. Half of the city believed it, though as yet they did not have the courage to say such words aloud. But soon, I think.

~

Not for the first time, Selmy wondered at the strange fates that had brought him here. He was a knight of Westeros, a man of the stormlands and the Dornish marches; his place was in the Seven Kingdoms, not here upon the sweltering shores of Slaver’s Bay. I came to bring Daenerys home. Yet he had lost her, just as he had lost her father and her brother. Even Robert. I failed him too.

Perhaps Hizdahr was wiser than he knew. Ten years ago I would have sensed what Daenerys meant to do. Ten years ago I would have been quick enough to stop her. Instead he had stood befuddled as she leapt into the pit, shouting her name, then running uselessly after her across the scarlet sands. I am become old and slow. Small wonder Naharis mocked him as Ser Grandfather. Would Daario have moved more quickly if he had been beside the queen that day? Selmy thought he knew the answer to that, though it was not one he liked.

He had dreamed of it again last night: Belwas on his knees retching up bile and blood, Hizdahr urging on the dragonslayers, men and women fleeing in terror, fighting on the steps, climbing over one another, screaming and shouting. And Daenerys …

Her hair was aflame. She had the whip in her hand and she was shouting, then she was on the dragon’s back, flying. The sand that Drogon stirred as he took wing had stung Ser Barristan’s eyes, but through a veil of tears he had watched the beast fly from the pit, his great black wings slapping at the shoulders of the bronze warriors at the gates.

The rest he learned later. Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. Spears were thrown, cross-bows were fired. Some struck home. The dragon twisted violently in the air, wounds smoking, the girl clinging to his back. Then he loosed the fire.

It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded. Drogon was gone from the city by then, last seen high over the Skahazadhan, flying north. Of Daenerys Targaryen, no trace had been found. Some swore they saw her fall. Others insisted that the dragon had carried her off to devour her. They are wrong.

Ser Barristan knew no more of dragons than the tales every child hears, but he knew Targaryens. Daenerys had been riding that dragon, as Aegon had once ridden Balerion of old.

“She might be flying home,” he told himself, aloud. “No,” murmured a soft voice behind him. “She would not do that, ser. She would not go home without us.”

Ser Barristan turned. “Missandei. Child. How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long. This one is sorry if she has disturbed you.”

~

It was his failures that haunted him at night, though. Jaehaerys, Aerys, Robert. Three dead kings. Rhaegar, who would have been a finer king than any of them. Princess Elia and the children. Aegon just a babe, Rhaenys with her kitten. Dead, every one, yet he still lived, who had sworn to protect them. And now Daenerys, his bright shining child queen. She is not dead. I will not believe it.

Afternoon brought Ser Barristan a brief respite from his doubts. He spent it in the training hall on the pyramid’s third level, working with his boys, teaching them the art of sword and shield, horse and lance … and chivalry, the code that made a knight more than any pit fighter. Daenerys would need protectors her own age about her after he was gone, and Ser Barristan was determined to give her such.

The lads he was instructing ranged in age from eight to twenty. He had started with more than sixty of them, but the training had proved too rigorous for many. Less than half that number now remained, but some showed great promise. With no king to guard, I will have more time to train them now, he realized as he walked from pair to pair, watching them go at one another with blunted swords and spears with rounded heads. Brave boys. Baseborn, aye, but some will make good knights, and they love the queen. If not for her, all of them would have ended in the pits. King Hizdahr has his pit fighters, but Daenerys will have knights.

~

If the queen had commanded me to protect Hizdahr, I would have had no choice but to obey. But Daenerys Targaryen had never established a proper Queensguard even for herself nor issued any commands in respect to her consort. The world was simpler when I had a lord commander to decide such matters, Selmy reflected. Now I am the lord commander, and it is hard to know which path is right.

~

“I have the poisoner.”

“Who?”

“Hizdahr’s confectioner. His name would mean nothing to you. The man was just a cats paw. The Sons of the Harpy took his daughter and swore she would be returned unharmed once the queen was dead. Belwas and the dragon saved Daenerys. No one saved the girl. She was returned to her father in the black of night, in nine pieces. One for every year she lived.”

“Why?” Doubts gnawed at him. “The Sons had stopped their killing. Hizdahr’s peace—”

“—is a sham. Not at first, no. The Yunkai’i were afraid of our queen, of her Unsullied, of her dragons. This land has known dragons before. Yurkhaz zo Yunzak had read his histories, he knew. Hizdahr as well. Why not a peace? Daenerys wanted it, they could see that. Wanted it too much. She should have marched to Astapor.” Skahaz moved closer. “That was before. The pit changed all. Daenerys gone, Yurkhaz dead. In place of one old lion, a pack of jackals. Bloodbeard … that one has no taste for peace. And there is more. Worse. Volantis has launched its fleet against us.”

“Volantis.” Selmy’s sword hand tingled. We made a peace with Yunkai. Not with Volantis. “You are certain?”

“Certain. The Wise Masters know. So do their friends. The Harpy, Reznak, Hizdahr. This king will open the city gates to the Volantenes when they arrive. All those Daenerys freed will be enslaved again. Even some who were never slaves will be fitted for chains. You may end your days in a fighting pit, old man. Khrazz will eat your heart.”

His head was pounding. “Daenerys must be told.”

“Find her first.” Skahaz grasped his forearm. His fingers felt like iron. “We cannot wait for her.

~

“Daenerys signed that peace,” Ser Barristan said. “It is not for us to break it without her leave.”

“And if she is dead?” demanded Skahaz. “What then, ser? I say she would want us to protect her city. Her children.”

Her children were the freedmen. Mhysa, they called her, all those whose chains she broke. “Mother.” The Shavepate was not wrong. Daenerys would want her children protected. “What of Hizdahr? He is still her consort. Her king. Her husband.”

“Her poisoner.”

Is he? “Where is your proof?”

“The crown he wears is proof enough. The throne he sits. Open your eyes, old man. That is all he needed from Daenerys, all he ever wanted. Once he had it, why share the rule?”

Why indeed? It had been so hot down in the pit. He could still see the air shimmering above the scarlet sands, smell the blood spilling from the men who’d died for their amusement. And he could still hear Hizdahr, urging his queen to try the honeyed locusts.

ADWD Daenerys IX

At the base of the Great Pyramid, Ser Barristan awaited them beside an ornate open palanquin, surrounded by Brazen Beasts. Ser Grandfather, Dany thought. Despite his age, he looked tall and handsome in the armor that she’d given him. “I would be happier if you had Unsullied guards about you today, Your Grace,” the old knight said, as Hizdahr went to greet his cousin. “Half of these Brazen Beasts are untried freedmen.” And the other half are Meereenese of doubtful loyalty, he left unsaid. Selmy mistrusted all the Meereenese, even shavepates.

“And untried they shall remain unless we try them.”

“A mask can hide many things, Your Grace. Is the man behind the owl mask the same owl who guarded you yesterday and the day before? How can we know?”

“How should Meereen ever come to trust the Brazen Beasts if I do not? There are good brave men beneath those masks. I put my life into their hands.” Dany smiled for him. “You fret too much, ser. I will have you beside me, what other protection do I need?”

“I am one old man, Your Grace.”

“Strong Belwas will be with me as well.”

“As you say.” Ser Barristan lowered his voice. “Your Grace. We set the woman Meris free, as you commanded. Before she went, she asked to speak with you. I met with her instead. She claims this Tattered Prince meant to bring the Windblown over to your cause from the beginning. That he sent her here to treat with you secretly, but the Dornishmen unmasked them and betrayed them before she could make her own approach.”

Treachery on treachery, the queen thought wearily. Is there no end to it? “How much of this do you believe, ser?”

“Little and less, Your Grace, but those were her words.”

“Will they come over to us, if need be?”

“She says they will. But for a price.”

“Pay it.” Meereen needed iron, not gold.

“The Tattered Prince will want more than coin, Your Grace. Meris says that he wants Pentos.” “Pentos?” Her eyes narrowed. “How can I give him Pentos? It is half a world away.”

“He would be willing to wait, the woman Meris suggested. Until we march for Westeros.”

And if I never march for Westeros? “Pentos belongs to the Pentoshi. And Magister Illyrio is in Pentos. He who arranged my marriage to Khal Drogo and gave me my dragon eggs. Who sent me you, and Belwas, and Groleo. I owe him much and more. I will not repay that debt by giving his city to some sellsword. No.”

Ser Barristan inclined his head. “Your Grace is wise.”

~

Ser Barristan Selmy rode at Dany’s side, his armor flashing in the sun. A long cloak flowed from his shoulders, bleached as white as bone. On his left arm was a large white shield. A little farther back was Quentyn Martell, the Dornish prince, with his two companions.

The column crept slowly down the long brick street. BOMM. “They come!” BOMM. “Our queen. Our king.” BOMM. “Make way.”

Dany could hear her handmaids arguing behind her, debating who was going to win the day’s final match. Jhiqui favored the gigantic Goghor, who looked more bull than man, even to the bronze ring in his nose. Irri insisted that Belaquo Bonebreaker’s flail would prove the giant’s undoing. My handmaids are Dothraki, she told herself. Death rides with every khalasar. The day she wed Khal Drogo, the arakhs had flashed at her wedding feast, and men had died whilst others drank and mated. Life and death went hand in hand amongst the horselords, and a sprinkling of blood was thought to bless a marriage. Her new marriage would soon be drenched in blood. How blessed it would be.

BOMM, BOMM, BOMM, BOMM, BOMM, BOMM, came the drumbeats, faster than before, suddenly angry and impatient. Ser Barristan drew his sword as the column ground to an abrupt halt between the pink-and-white pyramid of Pahl and the green-and-black of Naqqan.

Dany turned. “Why are we stopped?”

Hizdahr stood. “The way is blocked.”

A palanquin lay overturned athwart their way. One of its bearers had collapsed to the bricks, overcome by heat. “Help that man,” Dany commanded. “Get him off the street before he’s stepped on and give him food and water. He looks as though he has not eaten in a fortnight.”

Ser Barristan glanced uneasily to left and right. Ghiscari faces were visible on the terraces, looking down with cool and unsympathetic eyes. “Your Grace, I do not like this halt. This may be some trap. The Sons of the Harpy—”

“—have been tamed,” declared Hizdahr zo Loraq.

~

“She needs a spear,” Ser Barristan said, as Barsena vaulted over the beast’s second charge. “That is no way to fight a boar.” He sounded like someone’s fussy old grandsire, just as Daario was always saying.

~

“Khaleesi?” Irri asked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my floppy ears.” A dozen men with boar spears came trotting out onto the sand to drive the boar away from the corpse and back to his pen. The pitmaster was with them, a long barbed whip in his hand. As he snapped it at the boar, the queen rose. “Ser Barristan, will you see me safely back to my garden?”

~

“Kill it,” Hizdahr zo Loraq shouted to the other spearmen. “Kill the beast!”

Ser Barristan held her tightly. “Look away, Your Grace.”

“Let me go!” Dany twisted from his grasp. The world seemed to slow as she cleared the parapet. When she landed in the pit she lost a sandal. Running, she could feel the sand between her toes, hot and rough. Ser Barristan was calling after her. Strong Belwas was still vomiting. She ran faster.

~

Drogon roared full in her face, his breath hot enough to blister skin. Off to her right Dany heard Barristan Selmy shouting, “Me! Try me. Over here. Me!”

ADWD Daenerys VIII

“Ser Barristan?” she said softly.

The white knight appeared at once. “Your Grace.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough. He was not wrong. Never trust a sellsword.”

Or a queen, thought Dany. “Is there some man in the Second Sons who might be persuaded to … remove … Brown Ben?”

“As Daario Naharis once removed the other captains of the Stormcrows?” The old knight looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps. I would not know, Your Grace.”

No, she thought, you are too honest and too honorable. “If not, the Yunkai’i employ three other companies.”

“Rogues and cutthroats, scum of a hundred battlefields,” Ser Barristan warned, “with captains full as treacherous as Plumm.”

“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but it seems to me that we want them to be treacherous. Once, you’ll recall, I convinced the Second Sons and Stormcrows to join us.”

“If Your Grace wishes a privy word with Gylo Rhegan or the Tattered Prince, I could bring them up to your apartments.”

“This is not the time. Too many eyes, too many ears. Their absence would be noted even if you could separate them discreetly from the Yunkai’i. We must find some quieter way of reaching out to them … not tonight, but soon.”

“As you command. Though I fear this is not a task for which I am well suited. In King’s Landing work of this sort was left to Lord Littlefinger or the Spider. We old knights are simple men, only good for fighting.” He patted his sword hilt.

“Our prisoners,” suggested Dany. “The Westerosi who came over from the Windblown with the three Dornishmen. We still have them in cells, do we not? Use them.”

“Free them, you mean? Is that wise? They were sent here to worm their way into your trust, so they might betray Your Grace at the first chance.”

“Then they failed. I do not trust them. I will never trust them.” If truth be told, Dany was forgetting how to trust. “We can still use them. One was a woman. Meris. Send her back, as a … a gesture of my regard. If their captain is a clever man, he will understand.”

“The woman is the worst of all.”

“All the better.” Dany considered a moment. “We should sound out the Long Lances too. And the Company of the Cat.”

“Bloodbeard.” Ser Barristan’s frown deepened. “If it please Your Grace, we want no part of him. Your Grace is too young to remember the Ninepenny Kings, but this Bloodbeard is cut from the same savage cloth. There is no honor in him, only hunger … for gold, for glory, for blood.”

“You know more of such men than me, ser.” If Bloodbeard might be truly the most dishonorable and greedy of the sellswords, he might be the easiest to sway, but she was loath to go against Ser Barristan’s counsel in such matters. “Do as you think best. But do it soon. If Hizdahr’s peace should break, I want to be ready. I do not trust the slavers.” I do not trust my husband. “They will turn on us at the first sign of weakness.”

“The Yunkai’i grow weaker as well. The bloody flux has taken hold amongst the Tolosi, it is said, and spread across the river to the third Ghiscari legion.”

The pale mare. Daenerys sighed. Quaithe warned me of the pale mare’s coming. She told me of the Dornish prince as well, the sun’s son. She told me much and more, but all in riddles. “I cannot rely on plague to save me from my enemies. Set Pretty Meris free. At once.”

“As you command. Though … Your Grace, if I may be so bold, there is another road …”

“The Dornish road?” Dany sighed. The three Dornishmen had been at the feast, as befit Prince Quentyn’s rank, though Reznak had taken care to seat them as far as possible from her husband. Hizdahr did not seem to be of a jealous nature, but no man would be pleased by the presence of a rival suitor near his new bride. “The boy seems pleasant and well spoken, but …”

“House Martell is ancient and noble, and has been a leal friend to House Targaryen for more than a century, Your Grace. I had the honor of serving with Prince Quentyn’s great-uncle in your father’s seven. Prince Lewyn was as valiant a brother-in-arms as any man could wish for. Quentyn Martell is of the same blood, if it please Your Grace.”

“It would please me if he had turned up with these fifty thousand swords he speaks of. Instead he brings two knights and a parchment. Will a parchment shield my people from the Yunkai’i? If he had come with a fleet …”

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

“No.” Dany knew enough of Westerosi history to know that. Nymeria had landed ten thousand ships upon Dorne’s sandy shores, but when she wed her Dornish prince she had burned them all and turned her back upon the sea forever. “Dorne is too far away. To please this prince, I would need to abandon all my people. You should send him home.”

“Dornishmen are notoriously stubborn, Your Grace. Prince Quentyn’s forebears fought your own for the better part of two hundred years. He will not go without you.”

Then he will die here, Daenerys thought, unless there is more to him than I can see. “Is he still within?”

“Drinking with his knights.”

“Bring him to me. It is time he met my children.”

A flicker of doubt passed across the long, solemn face of Barristan Selmy. “As you command.”

Her king was laughing with Yurkhaz zo Yunzak and the other Yunkish lords. Dany did not think that he would miss her, but just in case she instructed her handmaids to tell him that she was answering a call of nature, should he inquire after her.

Ser Barristan was waiting by the steps with the Dornish prince.

~

Even here in her own pyramid, on this happy night of peace and celebration, Ser Barristan insisted on keeping guards about her everywhere she went. The small company made the long descent in silence, stopping thrice to refresh themselves along the way.

~

One of the elephants trumpeted at them from his stall. An answering roar from below made her flush with sudden heat. Prince Quentyn looked up in alarm. “The dragons know when she is near,” Ser Barristan told him.

[...] “Remain outside,” Dany told Ser Barristan, as the Unsullied were opening the huge iron doors. “Prince Quentyn will protect me.” She drew the Dornish prince inside with her, to stand above the pit.

~

“Ser Barristan will have summoned a pair of sedan chairs to carry us back up to the banquet, but the climb can still be wearisome.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

Khal Drogo had been her sun-and-stars, but he had been dead so long that Daenerys had almost forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Daario had helped her to remember. I was dead and he brought me back to life. I was asleep and he woke me. My brave captain. Even so, of late he grew too bold. On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart. Ser Grandfather had been so wroth that Dany feared blood might be shed. “We cannot wed, my love. You know why.”

~

“As you wish. Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser Barristan.

~

“If it please Your Grace, we are all three knights.”

Dany glanced at Daario and saw anger flash across his face. He did not know. “I have need of knights,” she said.

Ser Barristan’s suspicions had awakened. “Knighthood is easily claimed this far from Westeros. Are you prepared to defend that boast with sword or lance?”

“If need be,” said Gerrold, “though I will not claim that any of us is the equal of Barristan the Bold. Your Grace, I beg your pardon, but we have come before you under false names.”

“I knew someone else who did that once,” said Dany, “a man called Arstan Whitebeard. Tell me your true names, then.”

~

“This is your gift? A scrap of writing?” Daario snatched the parchment out of the Dornishman’s hands and unrolled it, squinting at the seals and signatures. “Very pretty, all the gold and ribbons, but I do not read your Westerosi scratchings.”

“Bring it to the queen,” Ser Barristan commanded. “Now.”

Dany could feel the anger in the hall. “I am only a young girl, and young girls must have their gifts,” she said lightly. “Daario, please, you must not tease me. Give it here.”

The parchment was written in the Common Tongue. The queen unrolled it slowly, studying the seals and signatures. When she saw the name Ser Willem Darry, her heart beat a little faster. She read it over once, and then again.

“May we know what it says, Your Grace?” asked Ser Barristan.

“It is a secret pact,” Dany said, “made in Braavos when I was just a little girl. Ser Willem Darry signed for us, the man who spirited my brother and myself away from Dragonstone before the Usurper’s men could take us. Prince Oberyn Martell signed for Dorne, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness.” She handed the parchment to Ser Barristan, so he might read it for himself.

~

Daario and Ser Barristan followed her up the steps to her apartments. “This changes everything,” the old knight said.

“This changes nothing,” Dany said, as Irri removed her crown. “What good are three men?”

“Three knights,” said Selmy.

“Three liars,” Daario said darkly. “They deceived me.”

“And bought you too, I do not doubt.” He did not trouble to deny it. Dany unrolled the parchment and examined it again. Braavos. This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door. Why did that make her feel so strange?

She found herself remembering her nightmare. Sometimes there is truth in dreams. Could Hizdahr zo Loraq be working for the warlocks, was that what the dream had meant? Could the dream have been a sending? Were the gods telling her to put Hizdahr aside and wed this Dornish prince instead? Something tickled at her memory. “Ser Barristan, what are the arms of House Martell?”

“A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear.”

The sun’s son. A shiver went through her. “Shadows and whispers.” What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun’s son. There was a lion in it too, and a dragon. Or am I the dragon? “Beware the perfumed seneschal.” That she remembered. “Dreams and prophecies. Why must they always be in riddles? I hate this. Oh, leave me, ser. Tomorrow is my wedding day.”

~

She found Strong Belwas eating grapes, as Barristan Selmy watched a stableboy cinch the girth on his dapple grey.

~

Ser Barristan helped her up onto her sedan chair. Quentyn rejoined his fellow Dornishmen. Strong Belwas bellowed for the gates to be opened, and Daenerys Targaryen was carried forth into the sun. Selmy fell in beside her on his dapple grey.

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

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

“You know, though. Tell me.”

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

“What happened to this knight?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Gracious queen, well met!”

ADWD Daenerys VI

Ser Barristan wrinkled up his nose, and said, “Your Grace should not be here, breathing these black humors.”

“I am the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?” Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true. She could remember being cold and hungry and afraid, but never sick.

“Even so,” the old knight said, “I would feel better if Your Grace would return to the city.” The many-colored brick walls of Meereen were half a mile back. “The bloody flux has been the bane of every army since the Dawn Age. Let us distribute the food, Your Grace.”

“On the morrow. I am here now. I want to see.” She put her heels into her silver. The others trotted after her. Jhogo rode before her, Aggo and Rakharo just behind, long Dothraki whips in hand to keep away the sick and dying. Ser Barristan was at her right, mounted on a dapple grey.

~

Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.”

~

“Too many dead,” Aggo said. “They should be burned.”

“Who will burn them?” asked Ser Barristan. “The bloody flux is everywhere. A hundred die each night.”

“It is not good to touch the dead,” said Jhogo.

“This is known,” Aggo and Rakharo said, together.

“That may be so,” said Dany, “but this thing must be done, all the same.” She thought a moment. “The Unsullied have no fear of corpses. I shall speak to Grey Worm.”

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan, “the Unsullied are your best fighters. We dare not loose this plague amongst them. Let the Astapori bury their own dead.”

“They are too feeble,” said Symon Stripeback.

Dany said, “More food might make them stronger.”

Symon shook his head. “Food should not be wasted on the dying, Your Worship. We do not have enough to feed the living.”

He was not wrong, she knew, but that did not make the words any easier to hear. “This is far enough,” the queen decided. “We’ll feed them here.” She raised a hand. Behind her the wagons bumped to a halt, and her riders spread out around them, to keep the Astapori from rushing at the food. No sooner had they stopped than the press began to thicken around them, as more and more of the afflicted came limping and shambling toward the wagons. The riders cut them off. “Wait your turn,” they shouted. “No pushing. Back. Stay back. Bread for everyone. Wait your turn.”

Dany could only sit and watch. “Ser,” she said to Barristan Selmy, “is there no more we can do? You have provisions.”

“Provisions for Your Grace’s soldiers. We may well need to withstand a long siege. The Stormcrows and the Second Sons can harry the Yunkishmen, but they cannot hope to turn them. If Your Grace would allow me to assemble an army …”

“If there must be a battle, I would sooner fight it from behind the walls of Meereen. Let the Yunkai’i try and storm my battlements.” The queen surveyed the scene around her. “If we were to share our food equally …”

“… the Astapori would eat through their portion in days, and we would have that much less for the siege.”

Dany gazed across the camp, to the many-colored brick walls of Meereen. The air was thick with flies and cries. “The gods have sent this pestilence to humble me. So many dead … I will not have them eating corpses.” She beckoned Aggo closer. “Ride to the gates and bring me Grey Worm and fifty of his Unsullied.”

“Khaleesi. The blood of your blood obeys.” Aggo touched his horse with his heels and galloped off.

Ser Barristan watched with ill-concealed apprehension. “You should not linger here overlong, Your Grace. The Astapori are being fed, as you commanded. There’s no more we can do for the poor wretches. We should repair back to the city.”

“Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you.” Dany vaulted down from the horse. “I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.”

~

“To celebrate your nuptials, it would be most fitting if you would allow the fighting pits to open once again. It would be your wedding gift to Hizdahr and to your loving people, a sign that you had embraced the ancient ways and customs of Meereen.”

“And most pleasing to the gods as well,” the Green Grace added in her soft and kindly voice.

A bride price paid in blood. Daenerys was weary of fighting this battle. Even Ser Barristan did not think she could win. “No ruler can make a people good,” Selmy had told her. “Baelor the Blessed prayed and fasted and built the Seven as splendid a temple as any gods could wish for, yet he could not put an end to war and want.” A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself.

~

The queen was framing her response when she heard a step behind her. The food, she thought. Her cooks had promised her to serve the noble Hizdahr’s favorite meal, dog in honey, stuffed with prunes and peppers. But when she turned to look, it was Ser Barristan standing there, freshly bathed and clad in white, his longsword at his side. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing, “I am sorry to disturb you, but I thought that you would want to know at once. The Stormcrows have returned to the city, with word of the foe. The Yunkishmen are on the march, just as we had feared.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed the noble face of Hizdahr zo Loraq. “The queen is at her supper. These sellswords can wait.”

Ser Barristan ignored him. “I asked Lord Daario to make his report to me, as Your Grace had commanded. He laughed and said that he would write it out in his own blood if Your Grace would send your little scribe to show him how to make the letters.”

“Blood?” said Dany, horrified. “Is that a jape? No. No, don’t tell me, I must see him for myself.” She was a young girl, and alone, and young girls can change their minds. “Convene my captains and commanders. Hizdahr, I know you will forgive me.”

“Meereen must come first.” Hizdahr smiled genially. “We will have other nights. A thousand nights.”

“Ser Barristan will show you out.”

~

“You’re hurt,” she gasped.

“This?” Daario touched his temple. “A crossbowman tried to put a quarrel through my eye, but I outrode it. I was hurrying home to my queen, to bask in the warmth of her smile.” He shook his sleeve, spattering red droplets. “This blood is not mine. One of my serjeants said we should go over to the Yunkai’i, so I reached down his throat and pulled his heart out. I meant to bring it to you as a gift for my silver queen, but four of the Cats cut me off and came snarling and spitting after me. One almost caught me, so I threw the heart into his face.”

“Very gallant,” said Ser Barristan, in a tone that suggested it was anything but, “but do you have tidings for Her Grace?”

“Hard tidings, Ser Grandfather. Astapor is gone, and the slavers are coming north in strength.”

~

Ser Barristan frowned at Daario. “Captain, you made mention of four free companies. We know of only three. The Windblown, the Long Lances, and the Company of the Cat.”

“Ser Grandfather knows how to count. The Second Sons have gone over to the Yunkai’i.” Daario turned his head and spat. “That’s for Brown Ben Plumm. When next I see his ugly face I will open him from throat to groin and rip out his black heart.”

~

“Please,” Dany said, but only Missandei seemed to hear. The queen got to her feet. “Be quiet! I have heard enough.”

“Your Grace.” Ser Barristan went to one knee. “We are yours to command. What would you have us do?”

“Continue as we planned. Gather food, as much as you can.”

ADWD Daenerys V

Ser Barristan remained. “Our stores are ample for the moment,” he reminded her, “and Your Grace has planted beans and grapes and wheat. Your Dothraki have harried the slavers from the hills and struck the shackles from their slaves. They are planting too, and will be bringing their crops to Meereen to market. And you will have the friendship of Lhazar.”

Daario won that for me, for all that it is worth. “The Lamb Men. Would that lambs had teeth.”

“That would make the wolves more cautious, no doubt.”

That made her laugh. “How fare your orphans, ser?”

The old knight smiled. “Well, Your Grace. It is good of you to ask.” The boys were his pride. “Four or five have the makings of knights. Perhaps as many as a dozen.”

“One would be enough if he were as true as you.” The day might come soon when she would have need of every knight. “Will they joust for me? I should like that.” Viserys had told her stories of the tourneys he had witnessed in the Seven Kingdoms, but Dany had never seen a joust herself.

“They are not ready, Your Grace. When they are, they will be pleased to demonstrate their prowess.”

“I hope that day comes quickly.” She would have kissed her good knight on the cheek, but just then Missandei appeared beneath the arched doorway.

~

Afterward, Ser Barristan told her that her brother Rhaegar would have been proud of her. Dany remembered the words Ser Jorah had spoken at Astapor: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.

~

She turned to Ser Barristan. “Send riders into the hills to find my bloodriders. Recall Brown Ben and the Second Sons as well.”

“And the Stormcrows, Your Grace?”

Daario. “Yes. Yes.” [...]

When Ser Barristan told her that her captain desired words with her, she thought for a moment that it was Daario, and her heart leapt. But the captain that he spoke of was Brown Ben Plumm.

~

“These are not apples, Ben,” said Dany. “These are men and women, sick and hungry and afraid.” My children. “I should have gone to Astapor.”

“Your Grace could not have saved them,” said Ser Barristan. “You warned King Cleon against this war with Yunkai. The man was a fool, and his hands were red with blood.”

And are my hands any cleaner?

~

Daenerys looked at the faces of the men around her. The Shavepate, scowling. Ser Barristan, with his lined face and sad blue eyes. Reznak mo Reznak, pale, sweating. Brown Ben, white-haired, grizzled, tough as old leather. Grey Worm, smooth-cheeked, stolid, expressionless. Daario should be here, and my bloodriders, she thought. If there is to be a battle, the blood of my blood should be with me. She missed Ser Jorah Mormont too. He lied to me, informed on me, but he loved me too, and he always gave good counsel.

~

“I defeated the Yunkai’i before. I will defeat them again. Where, though? How?”

“You mean to take the field?” The Shavepate’s voice was thick with disbelief. “That would be folly. Our walls are taller and thicker than the walls of Astapor, and our defenders are more valiant. The Yunkai’i will not take this city easily.”

Ser Barristan disagreed. “I do not think we should allow them to invest us. Theirs is a patchwork host at best. These slavers are no soldiers. If we take them unawares …”

“Small chance of that,” the Shavepate said. “The Yunkai’i have many friends inside the city. They will know.”

“How large an army can we muster?” Dany asked.

“Not large enough, begging your royal pardon,” said Brown Ben Plumm. “What does Naharis have to say? If we’re going to make a fight o’ this, we need his Stormcrows.”

“Daario is still in the field.”

~

“Ben, I will need your Second Sons to scout our enemies. Where they are, how fast they are advancing, how many men they have, and how they are disposed.”

“We’ll need provisions. Fresh horses too.”

“Of course. Ser Barristan will see to it.”

~

“What of these Astapori?”

My children. “They are coming here for help. For succor and protection. We cannot turn our backs on them.”

Ser Barristan frowned. “Your Grace, I have known the bloody flux to destroy whole armies when left to spread unchecked. The seneschal is right. We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen.”

Dany looked at him helplessly. It was good that dragons did not cry.

~

When Daenerys finally turned away, Ser Barristan stood near her, wrapped in his white cloak against the chill of evening. “Can we make a fight of this?” she asked him.

“Men can always fight, Your Grace. Ask rather if we can win. Dying is easy, but victory comes hard. Your freedmen are half-trained and unblooded. Your sellswords once served your foes, and once a man turns his cloak he will not scruple to turn it again. You have two dragons who cannot be controlled, and a third that may be lost to you. Beyond these walls your only friends are the Lhazarene, who have no taste for war.”

“My walls are strong, though.”

“No stronger than when we sat outside them. And the Sons of the Harpy are inside the walls with us. So are the Great Masters, both those you did not kill and the sons of those you did.”

“I know.” The queen sighed. “What do you counsel, ser?”

“Battle,” said Ser Barristan. “Meereen is overcrowded and full of hungry mouths, and you have too many enemies within. We cannot long withstand a siege, I fear. Let me meet the foe as he comes north, on ground of my own choosing.”

“Meet the foe,” she echoed, “with the freedmen you’ve called half-trained and unblooded.”

“We were all unblooded once, Your Grace. The Unsullied will help stiffen them. If I had five hundred knights …”

“Or five. And if I give you the Unsullied, I will have no one but the Brazen Beasts to hold Meereen.” When Ser Barristan did not dispute her, Dany closed her eyes. Gods, she prayed, you took Khal Drogo, who was my sun-and-stars. You took our valiant son before he drew a breath. You have had your blood of me. Help me now, I pray you. Give me the wisdom to see the path ahead and the strength to do what I must to keep my children safe.

The gods did not respond.

When she opened her eyes again, Daenerys said, “I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

ADWD Daenerys IV

“They are very sweet, the both of them,” Dany assured her. “Qezza sings for me sometimes. She has a lovely voice. And Ser Barristan has been instructing Grazhar and the other boys in the ways of western chivalry.”

~

“Your Grace need only ask him. The noble Hizdahr awaits below. Send down to him if that is your pleasure.”

You presume too much, priestess, the queen thought, but she swallowed her anger and made herself smile. “Why not?” She sent for Ser Barristan and told the old knight to bring Hizdahr to her. “It is a long climb. Have the Unsullied help him up.”

~

No sooner had Hizdahr zo Loraq taken his leave of her than Ser Barristan appeared behind her in his long white cloak. Years of service in the Kingsguard had taught the white knight how to remain unobtrusive when she was entertaining, but he was never far. He knows, she saw at once, and he disapproves. The lines around his mouth had deepened. “So,” she said to him, “it seems that I may wed again. Are you happy for me, ser?”

“If that is your command, Your Grace.”

“Hizdahr is not the husband you would have chosen for me.”

“It is not my place to choose your husband.”

“It is not,” she agreed, “but it is important to me that you should understand. My people are bleeding. Dying. A queen belongs not to herself, but to the realm. Marriage or carnage, those are my choices. A wedding or a war.”

“Your Grace, may I speak frankly?”

“Always.”

“There is a third choice.”

“Westeros?”

He nodded. “I am sworn to serve Your Grace, and to keep you safe from harm wherever you may go. My place is by your side, whether here or in King’s Landing … but your place is back in Westeros, upon the Iron Throne that was your father’s. The Seven Kingdoms will never accept Hizdahr zo Loraq as king.”

“No more than Meereen will accept Daenerys Targaryen as queen. The Green Grace has the right of that. I need a king beside me, a king of old Ghiscari blood. Elsewise they will always see me as the uncouth barbarian who smashed through their gates, impaled their kin on spikes, and stole their wealth.”

“In Westeros you will be the lost child who returns to gladden her father’s heart. Your people will cheer when you ride by, and all good men will love you.”

“Westeros is far away.”

“Lingering here will never bring it any closer. The sooner we take our leave of this place—”

“I know. I do.” Dany did not know how to make him see. She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen. “Ninety days is a long time. Hizdahr may fail. And if he does, the trying buys me time. Time to make alliances, to strengthen my defenses, to—”

“And if he does not fail? What will Your Grace do then?”

“Her duty.” The word felt cold upon her tongue. “You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?”

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

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

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

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

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

“A woods witch?” Dany was astonished.

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

“What became of her?”

“Summerhall.” The word was fraught with doom.

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

“As you command.” Ser Barristan bowed and turned to go. But at the door, he stopped. “Forgive me. Your Grace has a visitor. Shall I tell him to return upon the morrow?”

“Who is it?”

“Naharis. The Stormcrows have returned to the city.”

Daario. Her heart gave a flutter in her chest. “How long has … when did he …?” She could not seem to get the words out.

Ser Barristan seemed to understand. “Your Grace was with the priestess when he arrived. I knew you would not want to be disturbed. The captain’s news can wait until the morrow.”

“No.” How could I ever hope to sleep, knowing that my captain so close? “Send him up at once. And … I will have no more need of you this evening. I shall be safe with Daario. Oh, and send Irri and Jhiqui, if you would be so good. And Missandei.” I need to change, to make myself beautiful.

~

When he was gone, Daenerys called Ser Barristan back. “I want the Stormcrows back in the field.”

“Your Grace? They have only now returned …”

“I want them gone. Let them scout the Yunkish hinterlands and give protection to any caravans coming over the Khyzai Pass. Henceforth Daario shall make his reports to you. Give him every honor that is due him and see that his men are well paid, but on no account admit him to my presence.”

“As you say, Your Grace.”

ADWD Daenerys III

“Your hinterlands are not precious to me. Your person is. Should any ill befall you, this world would lose its savor.”

“My lord is good to care so much, but I am well protected.” Dany gestured toward where Barristan Selmy stood with one hand resting on his sword hilt. “Barristan the Bold, they call him. Twice he has saved me from assassins.”

Xaro gave Selmy a cursory inspection. “Barristan the Old, did you say? Your bear knight was younger, and devoted to you.”

“I do not wish to speak of Jorah Mormont.”

~

“Oh most beautiful of women,” Xaro said, as they began to climb, “there are footsteps behind us. We are followed.”

“My old knight does not frighten you, surely? Ser Barristan is sworn to keep my secrets.”

~

She turned her back upon the night, to where Barristan Selmy stood silent in the shadows. “My brother once told me a Westerosi riddle. Who listens to everything yet hears nothing?”

“A knight of the Kingsguard.” Selmy’s voice was solemn.

“You heard Xaro make his offer?”

“I did, Your Grace.” The old knight took pains not to look at her bare breast as he spoke to her.

Ser Jorah would not turn his eyes away. He loved me as a woman, where Ser Barristan loves me only as his queen. Mormont had been an informer, reporting to her enemies in Westeros, yet he had given her good counsel too. “What do you think of it? Of him?”

“Of him, little and less. These ships, though … Your Grace, with these ships we might be home before year’s end.”

Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all. “Beware of Qartheen bearing gifts, especially merchants of the Thirteen. There is some trap here. Perhaps these ships are rotten, or …”

“If they were so unseaworthy, they could not have crossed the sea from Qarth,” Ser Barristan pointed out, “but Your Grace was wise to insist upon inspection. I will take Admiral Groleo to the galleys at first light with his captains and two score of his sailors. We can crawl over every inch of those ships.”

It was good counsel. “Yes, make it so.” Westeros. Home. But if she left, what would happen to her city? Meereen was never your city, her brother’s voice seemed to whisper. Your cities are across the sea. Your Seven Kingdoms, where your enemies await you. You were born to serve them blood and fire.

Ser Barristan cleared his throat and said, “This warlock that the merchant spoke of …”

“Pyat Pree.” She tried to recall his face, but all she could see were his lips. The wine of the warlocks had turned them blue. Shade-of-the-evening, it was called. “If a warlock’s spell could kill me, I would be dead by now. I left their palace all in ashes.” Drogon saved me when they would have drained my life from me. Drogon burned them all.

“As you say, Your Grace. Still. I will be watchful.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I know you will. Come, walk me back down to the feast.”

~

Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them.

[...] The ships are sound, then?” she said, hoping.

“Sound enough, Your Grace. They are old ships, aye, but most are well maintained. The hull of the Pureborn Princess is worm-eaten. I’d not want to take her beyond the sight of land. The Narraqqa could stand a new rudder and lines, and the Banded Lizard has some cracked oars, but they will serve. The rowers are slaves, but if we offer them an honest oarsman’s wage, most will stay with us. Rowing’s all they know. Those who leave can be replaced from my own crews. It is a long hard voyage to Westeros, but these ships are sound enough to get us there, I’d judge.”

~

“Those left behind in Meereen would envy them their easy deaths,” moaned Reznak. “They will make slaves of us, or throw us in the pits. All will be as it was, or worse.”

“Where is your courage?” Ser Barristan lashed out. “Her Grace freed you from your chains. It is for you to sharpen your swords and defend your own freedom when she leaves.”

“Brave words, from one who means to sail into the sunset,” Symon Stripeback snarled back. “Will you look back at our dying?”

“Your Grace—”

“Magnificence—”

“Your Worship—”

“Enough.” Dany slapped the table. “No one will be left to die. You are all my people.” Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. “I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait.”

Groleo was aghast. “We must accept these ships. If we refuse this gift …”

Ser Barristan went to one knee before her. “My queen, your realm has need of you. You are not wanted here, but in Westeros men will flock to your banners by the thousands, great lords and noble knights. ‘She is come,’ they will shout to one another, in glad voices. ‘Prince Rhaegar’s sister has come home at last.’”

“If they love me so much, they will wait for me.” Dany stood.

~

She received the merchant prince alone, seated on her bench of polished ebony, on the cushions Ser Barristan had brought her.

ADWD Daenerys II

“It has been so long,” she had said to Ser Barristan, just yesterday. “What if Daario has betrayed me and gone over to my enemies?” Three treasons will you know. “What if he met another woman, some princess of the Lhazarene?”

The old knight neither liked nor trusted Daario, she knew. Even so, he had answered gallantly. “There is no woman more lovely than Your Grace. Only a blind man could believe otherwise, and Daario Naharis was not blind.”

No, she thought. His eyes are a deep blue, almost purple, and his gold tooth gleams when he smiles for me.

Ser Barristan was sure he would return, though. Dany could only pray that he was right.

~

A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.

~

In the purple hall, Dany found her ebon bench piled high about with satin pillows. The sight brought a wan smile to her lips. Ser Barristan’s work, she knew. The old knight was a good man, but sometimes very literal. It was only a jape, ser, she thought, but she sat on one of the pillows just the same.

~

“Your barber has served you well, Hizdahr. I hope you have come to show me his work and not to plague me further about the fighting pits.”

He made a deep obeisance. “Your Grace, I fear I must.”

Dany grimaced. Even her own people would give no rest about the matter. Reznak mo Reznak stressed the coin to be made through taxes. The Green Grace said that reopening the pits would please the gods. The Shavepate felt it would win her support against the Sons of the Harpy. “Let them fight,” grunted Strong Belwas, who had once been a champion in the pits. Ser Barristan suggested a tourney instead; his orphans could ride at rings and fight a mêlée with blunted weapons, he said, a suggestion Dany knew was as hopeless as it was well-intentioned. It was blood the Meereenese yearned to see, not skill.

~

Ser Barristan escorted her back up to her chambers. “Tell me a tale, ser,” Dany said as they climbed. “Some tale of valor with a happy ending.” She felt in need of happy endings. “Tell me how you escaped from the Usurper.”

“Your Grace. There is no valor in running for your life.”

Dany seated herself on a cushion, crossed her legs, and gazed up at him. “Please. It was the Young Usurper who dismissed you from the Kingsguard …”

“Joffrey, aye. They gave my age for a reason, though the truth was elsewise. The boy wanted a white cloak for his dog Sandor Clegane and his mother wanted the Kingslayer to be her lord commander. When they told me, I … I took off my cloak as they commanded, threw my sword at Joffrey’s feet, and spoke unwisely.”

“What did you say?”

“The truth … but truth was never welcome at that court. I walked from the throne room with my head high, though I did not know where I was going. I had no home but White Sword Tower. My cousins would find a place for me at Harvest Hall, I knew, but I had no wish to bring Joffrey’s displeasure down upon them. I was gathering my things when it came to me that I had brought this on myself by taking Robert’s pardon. He was a good knight but a bad king, for he had no right to the throne he sat. That was when I knew that to redeem myself I must find the true king, and serve him loyally with all the strength that still remained me.”

“My brother Viserys.”

“Such was my intent. When I reached the stables the gold cloaks tried to seize me. Joffrey had offered me a tower to die in, but I had spurned his gift, so now he meant to offer me a dungeon. The commander of the City Watch himself confronted me, emboldened by my empty scabbard, but he had only three men with him and I still had my knife. I slashed one man’s face open when he laid his hands upon me, and rode through the others. As I spurred for the gates I heard Janos Slynt shouting for them to go after me. Once outside the Red Keep, the streets were congested, else I might have gotten away clean. Instead they caught me at the River Gate. The gold cloaks who had pursued me from the castle shouted for those at the gate to stop me, so they crossed their spears to bar my way.”

“And you without your sword? How did you get past them?”

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

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

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

“Have you forgotten Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon?”

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

“Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper’s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty. The guilt …” The word caught in her throat. Hazzea, she thought, and suddenly she heard herself say, “I have to see the pit,” in a voice as small as a child’s whisper. “Take me down, ser, if you would.”

A flicker of disapproval crossed the old man’s face, but it was not his way to question his queen. “As you command.”

The servants’ steps were the quickest way down—not grand, but steep and straight and narrow, hidden in the walls. Ser Barristan brought a lantern, lest she fall. Bricks of twenty different colors pressed close around them, fading to grey and black beyond the lantern light. Thrice they passed Unsullied guards, standing as if they had been carved from stone. The only sound was the soft scruff of their feet upon the steps.

At ground level the Great Pyramid of Meereen was a hushed place, full of dust and shadows. Its outer walls were thirty feet thick. Within them, sounds echoed off arches of many-colored bricks, and amongst the stables, stalls, and storerooms. They passed beneath three massive arches, down a torchlit ramp into the vaults beneath the pyramid, past cisterns, dungeons, and torture chambers where slaves had been scourged and skinned and burned with red-hot irons. Finally they came to a pair of huge iron doors with rusted hinges, guarded by Unsullied.

At her command, one produced an iron key. The door opened, hinges shrieking. Daenerys Targaryen stepped into the hot heart of darkness and stopped at the lip of a deep pit. Forty feet below, her dragons raised their heads. Four eyes burned through the shadows—two of molten gold and two of bronze.

Ser Barristan took her by the arm. “No closer.”

“You think they would harm me?”

“I do not know, Your Grace, but I would sooner not risk your person to learn the answer.”

When Rhaegal roared, a gout of yellow flame turned darkness into day for half a heartbeat. The fire licked along the walls, and Dany felt the heat upon her face, like the blast from an oven. Across the pit, Viserion’s wings unfolded, stirring the stale air. He tried to fly to her, but the chains snapped taut as he rose and slammed him down onto his belly. Links as big as a man’s fist bound his feet to the floor. The iron collar about his neck was fastened to the wall behind him. Rhaegal wore matching chains. In the light of Selmy’s lantern, his scales gleamed like jade. Smoke rose from between his teeth. Bones were scattered on the floor at his feet, cracked and scorched and splintered. The air was uncomfortably hot and smelled of sulfur and charred meat.

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

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

The Great Masters had used the pit as a prison. It was large enough to hold five hundred men … and more than ample for two dragons. For how long, though? What will happen when they grow too large for the pit? Will they turn on one another with flame and claw? Will they grow wan and weak, with withered flanks and shrunken wings? Will their fires go out before the end?

What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness?

ADWD Daenerys I

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, “there is no need for you to see this.”

“He died for me.”

~

Ser Barristan Selmy remained behind. His hair was white, and there were crow’s-feet at the corners of his pale blue eyes. Yet his back was still unbent, and the years had not yet robbed him of his skill at arms. “Your Grace,” he said, “I fear your eunuchs are ill suited for the tasks you set them.”

Dany settled on her bench and wrapped her pelt about her shoulders once again. “The Unsullied are my finest warriors.”

“Soldiers, not warriors, if it please Your Grace. They were made for the battlefield, to stand shoulder to shoulder behind their shields with their spears thrust out before them. Their training teaches them to obey, fearlessly, perfectly, without thought or hesitation … not to unravel secrets or ask questions.”

“Would knights serve me any better?” Selmy was training knights for her, teaching the sons of slaves to fight with lance and longsword in the Westerosi fashion … but what good would lances do against cowards who killed from the shadows?

“Not in this,” the old man admitted. “And Your Grace has no knights, save me. It will be years before the boys are ready.”

“Then who, if not Unsullied? Dothraki would be even worse. [...] When the Stormcrows return from Lhazar, perhaps I can use them in the streets,” she told Ser Barristan, “but until then I have only the Unsullied.” Dany rose. “You must excuse me, ser. The petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen again. Summon Reznak and the Shavepate, I’ll see them when I’m dressed.”

“As Your Grace commands.” Selmy bowed.

~

There were times when Dany wondered if that razor might not be better saved for Reznak’s throat. He was a useful man, but she liked him little and trusted him less. The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?

~

“Ser Barristan,” she called, “I know what quality a king needs most.”

“Courage, Your Grace?”

“Cheeks like iron,” she teased. “All I do is sit.”

“Your Grace takes too much on herself. You should allow your councillors to shoulder more of your burdens.”

“I have too many councillors and too few cushions.”

~

Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they’ll eat.

~

No. Dany shivered. No, no, oh no. “Are you deaf, fool?” Reznak mo Reznak demanded of the man. “Did you not hear my pronouncement? See my factors on the morrow, and you shall be paid for your sheep.”

“Reznak,” Ser Barristan said quietly, “hold your tongue and open your eyes. Those are no sheep bones.”

No, Dany thought, those are the bones of a child.

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

Dany shifted uncomfortably on the ebony bench. She dreaded what must come next, yet she knew she had put it off too long already. Yunkai and Astapor, threats of war, marriage proposals, the march west looming over all ... I need my knights. I need their swords, and I need their counsel. Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she’d swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears. “Tell Belwas to bring my knights,” Dany commanded, before she could change her mind. “My good knights.”

Strong Belwas was puffing from the climb when he marched them through the doors, one meaty hand wrapped tight around each man’s arm. Ser Barristan walked with his head held high, but Ser Jorah stared at the marble floor as he approached. The one is proud, the other guilty. The old man had shaved off his white beard. He looked ten years younger without it. But her balding bear looked older than he had. They halted before the bench.

~

“Ser Barristan saved me from the Titan’s Bastard, and from the Sorrowful Man in Qarth. [...] So many people wanted her dead, sometimes she lost count. “And yet you lied, deceived me, betrayed me.” She turned to Ser Barristan. “You protected my father for many years, fought beside my brother on the Trident, but you abandoned Viserys in his exile and bent your knee to the Usurper instead. Why? And tell it true.”

“Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a ... a good knight ... chivalrous,
brave ... he spared my life, and the lives of many others ... Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and ... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth ... even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father’s son, in ways that Rhaegar never did.”

“His father’s son?” Dany frowned. “What does that mean?”

The old knight did not blink. “Your father is called ‘the Mad King’ in Westeros. Has no one ever told you?”

“Viserys did.” The Mad King. “The Usurper called him that, the Usurper and his dogs.” The Mad King. “It was a lie.”

“Why ask for truth,” Ser Barristan said softly, “if you close your ears to it?” He hesitated, then continued. “I told you before that I used a false name so the Lannisters would not know that I’d joined you. That was less than half of it, Your Grace. The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were not ...”

“... my father’s daughter?” If she was not her father’s daughter, who was she?

“... mad,” he finished. “But I see no taint in you.”


“Taint?” Dany bristled.

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

Jaehaerys. This old man knew my grandfather. The thought gave her pause. Most of what she knew of Westeros had come from her brother, and the rest from Ser Jorah. Ser Barristan would have forgotten more than the two of them had ever known. This man can tell me what I came from. “So I am a coin in the hands of some god, is that what you are saying, ser?”

“No,” Ser Barristan replied. “You are the trueborn heir of Westeros. To the end of my days I shall remain your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his squire.”

“What if I decide you’re only worthy to be my fool?” Dany asked scornfully. “Or perhaps my cook?”

“I would be honored, Your Grace,” Selmy said with quiet dignity. “I can bake apples and boil beef as well as any man, and I’ve roasted many a duck over a campfire. I hope you like them greasy, with charred skin and bloody bones.”

That made her smile. “I’d have to be mad to eat such fare. Ben Plumm, come give Ser Barristan your longsword.”

But Whitebeard would not take it. “I flung my sword at Joffrey’s feet and have not touched one since. Only from the hand of my queen will I accept a sword again.”

“As you wish.” Dany took the sword from Brown Ben and offered it hilt first. The old man took it reverently. “Now kneel,” she told him, “and swear it to my service.”

He went to one knee and lay the blade before her as he said the words. Dany scarcely heard them. He was the easy one, she thought. The other will be harder.

~

“Your Grace?”

She turned to find Ser Barristan behind her. “What more would you have of me, ser? I spared you, I took you into my service, now give me some peace.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace. It was only ... now that you know who I am ...” The old man hesitated. “A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king’s presence day and night. For that reason, our vows require us to protect his secrets as we would his life. But your father’s secrets by rights belong to you now, along with his throne, and ... I thought perhaps you might have questions for me.”

Questions? She had a hundred questions, a thousand, ten thousand. Why couldn’t she think of one? “Was my father truly mad?” she blurted out. Why do I ask that? “Viserys said this talk of madness was a ploy of the Usurper’s ...”

“Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise ... but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until ...”

Dany stopped him. “Do I want to hear this now?”

Ser Barristan considered a moment. “Perhaps not. Not now.”

“Not now,” she agreed. “One day. One day you must tell me all. The good and the bad. There is some good to be said of my father, surely?”

“There is, Your Grace. Of him, and those who came before him. Your grandfather Jaehaerys and his brother, their father Aegon, your mother ... and Rhaegar. Him most of all.”

“I wish I could have known him.” Her voice was wistful.

“I wish he could have known you,” the old knight said. “When you are ready, I will tell you all.”

Dany kissed him on the cheek and sent him on his way.

~

“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on.”

“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on themselves,” said Daario Naharis.

“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei pointed out.

“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply. “Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad? Do I have the taint?

“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty. “Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”

“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.

“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.”

ASOS Daenerys V

“Blood of my blood,” Dany told them, “your place is here by me. This man is a buzzing fly, no more. Ignore him, he will soon be gone.” Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo were brave warriors, but they were young, and too valuable to risk. They kept her khalasar together, and were her best scouts too.

“That was wisely done,” Ser Jorah said as they watched from the front of her pavilion. “Let the fool ride back and forth and shout until his horse goes lame. He does us no harm.”

“He does,” Arstan Whitebeard insisted. “Wars are not won with swords and spears alone, ser. Two hosts of equal strength may come together, but one will break and run whilst the other stands. This hero builds courage in the hearts of his own men and plants the seeds of doubt in ours.”

~

“This challenge must be met,” Arstan said again.

“It will be.” Dany said, as the hero tucked his penis away again.

~

“Missandei,” she called, “have my silver saddled. Your own mount as well.”

The little scribe bowed. “As Your Grace commands. Shall I summon your bloodriders to guard you?”

“We’ll take Arstan. I do not mean to leave the camps.” She had no enemies among her children. And the old squire would not talk too much as Belwas would, or look at her like Daario.

~

“There’s the treacherous sow,” he said. “I knew you’d come to get your feet kissed one day.” His head was bald as a melon, his nose red and peeling, but she knew that voice and those pale green eyes. “I’m going to start by cutting off your teats.” Dany was dimly aware of Missandei shouting for help. A freedman edged forward, but only a step. One quick slash, and he was on his knees, blood running down his face. Mero wiped his sword on his breeches. “Who’s next?”

“I am.” Arstan Whitebeard leapt from his horse and stood over her, the salt wind riffling through his snowy hair, both hands on his tall hardwood staff.

“Grandfather,” Mero said, “run off before I break your stick in two and bugger you with —”

The old man feinted with one end of the staff, pulled it back, and whipped the other end about faster than Dany would have believed. The Titan’s Bastard staggered back into the surf, spitting blood and broken teeth from the ruin of his mouth. Whitebeard put Dany behind him. Mero slashed at his face. The old man jerked back, cat-quick. The staff thumped Mero’s ribs, sending him reeling. Arstan splashed sideways, parried a looping cut, danced away from a second, checked a third mid-swing. The moves were so fast she could hardly follow. Missandei was pulling Dany to her feet when she heard a crack. She thought Arstan’s staff had snapped until she saw the jagged bone jutting from Mero’s calf. As he fell, the Titan’s Bastard twisted and lunged, sending his point straight at the old man’s chest. Whitebeard swept the blade aside almost contemptuously and smashed the other end of his staff against the big man’s temple. Mero went sprawling, blood bubbling from his mouth as the waves washed over him. A moment later the freedmen washed over him too, knives and stones and angry fists rising and falling in a frenzy.

Dany turned away, sickened. She was more frightened now than when it had been happening. He would have killed me.

“Your Grace.” Arstan knelt. “I am an old man, and shamed. He should never have gotten close enough to seize you. I was lax. I did not know him without his beard and hair.”

“No more than I did.” Dany took a deep breath to stop her shaking. Enemies everywhere. “Take me back to my tent. Please.”

~

“You might have warned me that the Titan’s Bastard had escaped.”

He frowned. “I saw no need to frighten you, Your Grace. I have offered a reward for his head—”

“Pay it to Whitebeard. Mero has been with us all the way from Yunkai. He shaved his beard off and lost himself amongst the freedmen, waiting for a chance for vengeance. Arstan killed him.”

Ser Jorah gave the old man a long look. “A squire with a stick slew Mero of Braavos, is that the way of it?”

“A stick,” Dany confirmed, “but no longer a squire. Ser Jorah, it’s my wish that Arstan be knighted.”

“No.”


The loud refusal was surprise enough. Stranger still, it came from both men at once.

Ser Jorah drew his sword. “The Titan’s Bastard was a nasty piece of work. And good at killing. Who are you, old man?”

“A better knight than you, ser,” Arstan said coldly.

Knight? Dany was confused. “You said you were a squire.”

“I was, Your Grace.” He dropped to one knee. “I squired for Lord Swann in my youth, and at Magister Illyrio’s behest I have served Strong Belwas as well. But during the years between, I was a knight in Westeros. I have told you no lies, my queen. Yet there are truths I have withheld, and for that and all my other sins I can only beg your forgiveness.”

“What truths have you withheld?” Dany did not like this. “You will tell me. Now.”

He bowed his head. “At Qarth, when you asked my name, I said I was called Arstan. That much was true. Many men had called me by that name while Belwas and I were making our way east to find you. But it is not my true name.”

She was more confused than angry. He has played me false, just as Jorah warned me, yet he saved my life just now.

Ser Jorah flushed red. “Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn’t you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar ...”

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

“I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold.” He laid the point of his sword against the old man’s neck. “Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.”

The old knight did not so much as blink. “The crow calls the raven black, and you speak of betrayal.”

“Why are you here?” Dany demanded of him. “If Robert sent you to kill me, why did you save my life?” He served the Usurper. He betrayed Rhaegar’s memory, and abandoned Viserys to live and die in exile. Yet if he wanted me dead, he need only have stood
aside ... “I want the whole truth now, on your honor as a knight. Are you the Usurper’s man, or mine?”

“Yours, if you will have me.” Ser Barristan had tears in his eyes. “I took Robert’s pardon, aye. I served him in Kingsguard and council. Served with the Kingslayer and others near as bad, who soiled the white cloak I wore. Nothing will excuse that. I might be serving in King’s Landing still if the vile boy upon the Iron Throne had not cast me aside, it shames me to admit. But when he took the cloak that the White Bull had draped about my shoulders, and sent men to kill me that selfsame day, it was as though he’d ripped a caul off my eyes. That was when I knew I must find my true king, and die in his service—”

“I can grant that wish,” Ser Jorah said darkly.

“Quiet,” said Dany. “I’ll hear him out.”

“It may be that I must die a traitor’s death,” Ser Barristan said. “If so, I should not die alone. Before I took Robert’s pardon I fought against him on the Trident. You were on the other side of that battle, Mormont, were you not?” He did not wait for an answer. “Your Grace, I am sorry I misled you. It was the only way to keep the Lannisters from learning that I had joined you. You are watched, as your brother was. Lord Varys reported every move Viserys made, for years. Whilst I sat on the small council, I heard a hundred such reports. And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.”

He cannot mean ... “You are mistaken.” Dany looked at Jorah Mormont. “Tell him he’s mistaken. There’s no informer. Ser Jorah, tell him. We crossed the Dothraki sea together, and the red waste ...” Her heart fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Tell him, Jorah. Tell him how he got it wrong.”

“The Others take you, Selmy.” Ser Jorah flung his longsword to the carpet. “Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”

Ser Barristan rose stiff and slow. For the first time, he looked his age. “Where shall we go, Your Grace?”

“To hell, to serve King Robert.” Dany felt hot tears on her cheeks. Drogon screamed, lashing his tail back and forth. “The Others can have you both.” Go, go away forever, both of you, the next time I see your faces I’ll have your traitors’ heads off. She could not say the words, though. They betrayed me. But they saved me. But they lied. “You go ...” My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him? And the old man, my brother’s friend. “You go ... go ...” Where?

And then she knew.

ASOS Daenerys IV

But when Mero was gone, Arstan Whitebeard said, “That one has an evil reputation, even in Westeros. Do not be misled by his manner, Your Grace. He will drink three toasts to your health tonight, and rape you on the morrow.”

“The old man’s right for once,” Ser Jorah said. “The Second Sons are an old company, and not without valor, but under Mero they’ve turned near as bad as the Brave Companions. The man is as dangerous to his employers as to his foes. That’s why you find him out here. None of the Free Cities will hire him any longer.”

“It is not his reputation that I want, it’s his five hundred horse.”

~

“I think we should attack from three sides. Grey Worm, your Unsullied shall strike at them from right and left, while my kos lead my horse in wedge for a thrust through their center. Slave soldiers will never stand before mounted Dothraki.” She smiled. “To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?”

“I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen’s sister,” Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

“Aye,” said Arstan Whitebeard, “and a queen as well.”

~

“Daenerys, I am thrice your age,” Ser Jorah said. “I have seen how false men are. Very few are worthy of trust, and Daario Naharis is not one of them. Even his beard wears false colors.”

That angered her. “Whilst you have an honest beard, is that what you are telling me? You are the only man I should ever trust?”

He stiffened. “I did not say that.”

“You say it every day. Pyat Pree’s a liar, Xaro’s a schemer, Belwas a braggart, Arstan an assassin ... do you think I’m still some virgin girl, that I cannot hear the words behind the words?”

~

She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

~

A stillness settled over her camp when midnight came and went. Dany remained in her pavilion with her maids, while Arstan Whitebeard and Strong Belwas kept the guard. The waiting is the hardest part. To sit in her tent with idle hands while her battle was being fought without her made Dany feel half a child again.

The hours crept by on turtle feet. Even after Jhiqui rubbed the knots from her shoulders, Dany was too restless for sleep. Missandei offered to sing her a lullaby of the Peaceful People, but Dany shook her head. “Bring me Arstan,” she said.

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

“Your Grace is kind to say so.”


“Viserys said that our brother won many tourneys.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Was he the champion, then?”

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

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

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

“Which was that?” Dany demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Say it,” she urged. “A sense ...?”

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

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

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

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

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

ASOS Daenerys III

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her. Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything, she would give us.”

Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons, not slaves. You must not do this thing—”

“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove Whitebeard from my presence.”

Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace.

“Tell the Good Masters I regret this interruption,” said Dany to the slave girl.

~

Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child. Even the thought made her ill.

Yet down in the Plaza of Pride, standing on the hot red bricks between the slavers’ pyramid and the barracks of the eunuchs, Dany turned on the old man. “Whitebeard,” she said, “I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your mind with
me ... when we are alone. But never question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.


“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.”

“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”

“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.”

ASOS Daenerys II

“Tell her that these have been standing here for a day and a night, with no food nor water. Tell her that they will stand until they drop if I should command it, and when nine hundred and ninety-nine have collapsed to die upon the bricks, the last will stand there still, and never move until his own death claims him. Such is their courage. Tell her that.”

“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. [...]

“Inform the savages that we call this obedience. Others may be stronger or quicker or larger than the Unsullied. Some few may even equal their skill with sword and spear and shield. But nowhere between the seas will you ever find any more obedient.”

“Sheep are obedient,” said Arstan when the words had been translated. He had some Valyrian as well, though not so much as Dany, but like her he was feigning ignorance.

~

“A eunuch who is cut young will never have the brute strength of one of your Westerosi knights, this is true,” said Kraznys mo Nakloz when the question was put to him. “A bull is strong as well, but bulls die every day in the fighting pits. A girl of nine killed one not three days past in Jothiel’s Pit. The Unsullied have something better than strength, tell her. They have discipline. We fight in the fashion of the Old Empire, yes. They are the lockstep legions of Old Ghis come again, absolutely obedient, absolutely loyal, and utterly without fear.”

Dany listened patiently to the translation.
“Even the bravest men fear death and maiming,” Arstan said when the girl was done.

~

“Tell her all their names are such,” Kraznys commanded the girl. “It reminds them that by themselves they are vermin. The name disks are thrown in an empty cask at duty’s end, and each dawn plucked up again at random.”

“More madness,” said Arstan, when he heard. “How can any man possibly remember a new name every day?”

~

Arstan Whitebeard tapped the end of his staff on the bricks as he listened to that. Tap tap tap. Slow and steady. Tap tap tap. Dany saw him turn his eyes away, as if he could not bear to look at Kraznys any longer.

~

She looked at Arstan. “You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”

“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.


“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo Nakloz might hear later.

“My queen,” said Arstan, “there have been no slaves in the Seven Kingdoms for thousands of years. The old gods and the new alike hold slavery to be an abomination. Evil. If you should land in Westeros at the head of a slave army, many good men will oppose you for no other reason than that. You will do great harm to your cause, and to the honor of your House.”

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.”

“When the day comes that you raise your banners, half of Westeros will be with you,” Whitebeard promised. “Your brother Rhaegar is still remembered, with great love.”

“And my father?” Dany said.

The old man hesitated before saying, “King Aerys is also remembered. He gave the realm many years of peace. Your Grace, you have no need of slaves. Magister Illyrio can keep you safe while your dragons grow, and send secret envoys across the narrow sea on your behalf, to sound out the high lords for your cause.”

“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. In any language.

~

Tap tap tap, Dany heard. Arstan Whitebeard’s face was still, but his staff beat out his rage. Tap tap tap.

~

Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in such heat.

~

“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”

“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.

“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”

“I can well believe that,” said Dany.

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. “There are sellswords in Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh you can hire. A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves. Find your army there, I beg you.”

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.”

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?”

Whitebeard bowed his head. “Your Grace, I did not mean to give offense.”

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” Dany patted Arstan’s spotted hand to reassure him. “I have a dragon’s temper, that’s all. You must not let it frighten you.”

“I shall try and remember.” Whitebeard smiled.

He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to?

~

“Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

ASOS Daenerys I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I had that great honor, Your Grace.”

“Did you find him good and gentle?”

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

“I would hear it from you.”

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

“And he was!” said Dany, delighted.

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

Dany glanced aft. The eunuch was climbing through the hold amidships, nimble for all his size. Belwas was squat but broad, a good fifteen stone of fat and muscle, his great brown gut crisscrossed by faded white scars. He wore baggy pants, a yellow silk bellyband, and an absurdly tiny leather vest dotted with iron studs. “Strong Belwas is hungry!” he roared at everyone and no one in particular. “Strong Belwas will eat now!” Turning, he spied Arstan on the forecastle. “Whitebeard! You will bring food for Strong Belwas!”

“You may go,” Dany told the squire. He bowed again, and moved off to tend the needs of the man he served.

Ser Jorah watched with a frown on his blunt honest face. Mormont was big and burly, strong of jaw and thick of shoulder. Not a handsome man by any means, but as true a friend as Dany had ever known. “You would be wise to take that old man’s words well salted,” he told her when Whitebeard was out of earshot.

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” She had read that in a book.

“Hear my voice then, Your Grace,” the exile said. “This Arstan Whitebeard is playing you false. He is too old to be a squire, and too well spoken to be serving that oaf of a eunuch.”

That does seem queer, Dany had to admit.

[...] Ser Jorah saved me from the poisoner, and Arstan Whitebeard from the manticore. Perhaps Strong Belwas will save me from the next.

~

“Sit, good ser, and tell me what is troubling you.”

“Three things.” Ser Jorah sat. “Strong Belwas. This Arstan Whitebeard. And Illyrio Mopatis, who sent them.”

Again? Dany pulled the coverlet higher and tugged one end over her shoulder. “And why is that?”

“The warlocks in Qarth told you that you would be betrayed three times,” the exile knight reminded her, as Viserion and Rhaegal began to snap and claw at each other.

“Once for blood and once for gold and once for love.” Dany was not like to forget. “Mirri Maz Duur was the first.”

“Which means two traitors yet remain ... and now these two appear. I find that troubling, yes. Never forget, Robert offered a lordship to the man who slays you.”

Dany leaned forward and yanked Viserion’s tail, to pull him off his green brother. Her blanket fell away from her chest as she moved. She grabbed it hastily and covered herself again. “The Usurper is dead,” she said.

“But his son rules in his place.” Ser Jorah lifted his gaze, and his dark eyes met her own. “A dutiful son pays his father’s debts. Even blood debts.”

“This boy Joffrey might want me dead ... if he recalls that I’m alive. What has that to do with Belwas and Arstan Whitebeard? The old man does not even wear a sword. You’ve seen that.”

“Aye. And I have seen how deftly he handles that staff of his. Recall how he killed that manticore in Qarth? It might as easily have been your throat he crushed.”

“Might have been, but was not,” she pointed out. “It was a stinging manticore meant to slay me. He saved my life.”

“Khaleesi, has it occurred to you that Whitebeard and Belwas might have been in league with the assassin? It might all have been a ploy to win your trust.”

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping to his perch above the porthole. “The ploy worked well.”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

“I see a fat brown man and an older man with a staff. Which is it?”

“Both of them,” Ser Jorah said. “They have been following us since we left Quicksilver.”

~

The other man wore a traveler’s cloak of undyed wool, the hood thrown back. Long white hair fell to his shoulders, and a silky white beard covered the lower half of his face. He leaned his weight on a hardwood staff as tall as he was. Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward Jhogo and Aggo. “The old man does not wear a sword,” she said to Jorah in the Common Tongue as she drew him away.

~

A Qartheen stepped into her path. “Mother of Dragons, for you.” He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. “You are too generous.” She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, “I am so sorry,” but she hardly heard.

The scarab unfolded with a hiss.

Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom ... and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past her, and Dany stumbled to one knee. She heard the hiss again. The old man drove the butt of his staff into the ground, Aggo came riding through an eggseller’s stall and vaulted from his saddle, Jhogo’s whip cracked overhead, Ser Jorah slammed the eunuch over the head with the brass platter, sailors and whores and merchants were fleeing or shouting or both ...

“Your Grace, a thousand pardons.” The old man knelt. “It’s dead. Did I break your hand?”

She closed her fingers, wincing. “I don’t think so.”

“I had to knock it away,” he started, but her bloodriders were on him before he could finish.

Aggo kicked his staff away and Jhogo seized him round the shoulders, forced him to his knees, and pressed a dagger to his throat. “Khaleesi, we saw him strike you. Would you see the color of his blood?”

“Release him.” Dany climbed to her feet. “Look at the bottom of his staff, blood of my blood.” Ser Jorah had been shoved off his feet by the eunuch. She ran between them as arakh and longsword both came flashing from their sheaths. “Put down your steel! Stop it!”

“Your Grace?” Mormont lowered his sword only an inch. “These men attacked you.”

“They were defending me.” Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. “It was the other one, the Qartheen.” When she looked around he was gone. “He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand.” The brass merchant was still rolling on the ground. She went to him and helped him to his feet. “Were you stung?”

“No, good lady,” he said, shaking, “or else I would be dead. But it touched me, aieeee, when it fell from the box it landed on my arm.” He had soiled himself, she saw, and no wonder.

She gave him a silver for his trouble and sent him on his way before she turned back to the old man with the white beard. “Who is it that I owe my life to?”

“You owe me nothing, Your Grace. I am called Arstan, though Belwas named me Whitebeard on the voyage here.” Though Jhogo had released him the old man remained on one knee. Aggo picked up his staff, turned it over, cursed softly in Dothraki, scraped the remains of the manticore off on a stone, and handed it back.

“And who is Belwas?” she asked.

The huge brown eunuch swaggered forward, sheathing his arakh. “I am Belwas. Strong Belwas they name me in the fighting pits of Meereen. Never did I lose.” He slapped his belly, covered with scars. “I let each man cut me once, before I kill him. Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain.”

Dany had no need to count his scars; there were many, she could see at a glance. “And why are you here, Strong Belwas?”

“From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him.”

The fat man with sweet stink in his hair ... “Illyrio?” she said. “You were sent by Magister Illyrio?”

“We were, Your Grace,” old Whitebeard replied. “The Magister begs your kind indulgence for sending us in his stead, but he cannot sit a horse as he did in his youth, and sea travel upsets his digestion.” Earlier he had spoken in the Valyrian of the Free Cities, but now he changed to the Common Tongue. “I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more ... more ...”

“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. “You speak the Common Tongue well, Arstan. Are you of Westeros?”

“I am. I was born on the Dornish Marches, Your Grace. As a boy I squired for a knight of Lord Swann’s household.” He held the tall staff upright beside him like a lance in need of a banner. “Now I squire for Belwas.”

“A bit old for such, aren’t you?” Ser Jorah had shouldered his way to her side, holding the brass platter awkwardly under his arm. Belwas’s hard head had left it badly bent.

“Not too old to serve my liege, Lord Mormont.”

“You know me as well?”

“I saw you fight a time or two. At Lannisport where you near unhorsed the Kingslayer. And on Pyke, there as well. You do not recall, Lord Mormont?”

Ser Jorah frowned. “Your face seems familiar, but there were hundreds at Lannisport and thousands on Pyke. And I am no lord. Bear Island was taken from me. I am but a knight.”

“A knight of my Queensguard.” Dany took his arm. “And my true friend and good counselor.” She studied Arstan’s face. He had a great dignity to him, a quiet strength she liked. “Rise, Arstan Whitebeard. Be welcome, Strong Belwas. Ser Jorah you know. Ko Aggo and Ko Jhogo are blood of my blood. They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born. [...] Now tell me, what would Magister Illyrio have of me, that he would send you all the way from Pentos?”

“He would have dragons,” said Belwas gruffly, “and the girl who makes them. He would have you.”

“Belwas has the truth of us, Your Grace,” said Arstan. “We were told to find you and bring you back to Pentos. The Seven Kingdoms have need of you. Robert the Usurper is dead, and the realm bleeds. When we set sail from Pentos there were four kings in the land, and no justice to be had.”

Joy bloomed in her heart, but Dany kept it from her face. “I have three dragons,” she said, “and more than a hundred in my khalasar, with all their goods and horses.”

“It is no matter,” boomed Belwas. “We take all. The fat man hires three ships for his little silverhair queen.”

“It is so, Your Grace,” Arstan Whitebeard said. “The great cog Saduleon is berthed at the end of the quay, and the galleys Summer Sun and Joso’s Prank are anchored beyond the breakwater.”

Three heads has the dragon, Dany thought, wondering. “I shall tell my people to make ready to depart at once. But the ships that bring me home must bear different names.”

“As you wish,” said Arstan. “What names would you prefer?”

“Vhagar,” Daenerys told him. “Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned.”

[writearctic]

An Effort to Love (a) (m) - Seo Changbin

wc: 1.2k

please remember that you deserve the effort you give. if love turns lonely, let it go.

When Changbin entered your apartment, he found you peacefully asleep under the covers. He smiled and sighed; you were pure innocence to him. He always found himself returning to you when he needed to refresh.

A return to reality. No extremities. Just you and him. Good, clean sex as a restart from his line of quickies. His typical one night stands were good- fantastic when compared to your simplicity- and it made him feel alive. But the women he'd meet always wanted more.

Not you. You weren't expecting something from him. It was nothing more than sex. No strings attached. Because it was just simply you. You couldn't ever love him.

He sat at your bedroom desk and stared at your night light. Changbin was never one for relationships, but with you, he always found himself coming back even if just for the night.

His fingers began tapping the desktop anxiously. He had been away for a while. Changbin had been avoiding you: keeping himself busy sleeping around with other girls. Now, here he was. Back to his best friend. Or rather, friend with benefits.

You stirred in your sleep; Changbin turned to you but kept his fingers clicking on the desk. You heard the faint beatings and sat up rubbing your eyes.

"Bin," you croaked. There was a quick, rigid silence between you. "Hi." You didn't intend for Changbin to hear the difference in your tone. Your voice was much softer and almost breakable the second time.

"You're well?" He asked as an offer to fill the silent space. Changbin never fully looked at you anymore; it was always quick glances here and there. You couldn't complain though. You wouldn't complain in fear of losing him.

"Mhm yeah. How are you?" You placed your hands in your lap effortlessly and twiddled your thumbs in circles.

"I'm fine. Been to lots of new places lately," he chuckled.

"Oh? Like-"

"There's this new girl, Rosie, and oh my gosh. She gave me the best blow I've ever had." Changbin leaned back in your desk chair and closed his eyes obviously trying to relive the moment.

You were disgusted. Changbin had never talked about a girl with you before- you figured he respected your boundaries about his hobbies- but finally hearing him mention someone in such perverted regards enraged you.

It angered you because he may have found someone to stay. Someone who wasn't you.

You clenched your hands around the blanket- white knuckles.

"Oh and she has a room mate who-"

His voice faded. You couldn't make out the words from his mouth. You stared at him with glossy eyes hoping he'd look at you like he used to. But no. The short passes of his eyes continued to drift away from you. I don't even know you anymore, you realized.

"Changbin!" You shouted and threw your hands on your comforter with a plop.

"Hu-hm?" You startled him; Changbin was nervous. He finally faced you completely. It was still dark aside from your night light, but you could see him fairly well. And he saw you much the same.

The luminescent light framed his face perfectly; it made you see features about him you haven't noticed before. His lashes were shining from the natural oils that covered them. His skin glowed softly in an ethereal way. It was gentle like moon.

"Do you ever think about maybe staying around with me like you used to?" Your voice was normal now, but the tone was sharp. Even speaking to him like that made your eyes sting with tears.

"What?" Changbin scoffed at your question. "What do you mean 'like you used to?'" He crossed his arms defensively as if to shut you out.

"Like at the beginning of uni." You sounded pathetic but paid no mind to it. You were on a roll and determined to save the possibilities of what you two could be. "You know... when we'd have movie night every Thursday. And you'd walk me home after classes, ask about my day, or if I've eaten. Or even text me!"

He smirked. "Baby."

"Don't say that unless you understand what it means to me," you spat at him. You were certainly not like one of his late-night hook ups who fell for whatever tricks he gave.

He scoffed again. "I don't stick around. You, of all people, should know this best."

"I know, I do. But you used to spend time with me and make an effort to do so." You whined, and it pinched a nerve in the boy.

"Well, yeah. Cause it was your first year here," Changbin shrugged. "You needed a shoulder to lean on. Everyone does their first year. Truth is, y/n. I really wanted to stay friends with you. But then you grew up. Gosh, you're absolutely stunning now. And when you actually agreed to have sex with me? Oh my. It was like winning the lottery! You are simple in bed, and I love it when I need it. But that's kinda who we are now. I really didn't see a reason for us to be anything other than friends with benefits."

"What if I don't want that!?" You cried. The tears finally began pooling out of your eyes. Here he was, the man you've been crushing on for... well a while, saying you were nothing more than a use for "simple sex." You weren't even sure if that was an insult or not.

"What do you mean? You said 'yes' to sex with me." He asked. His eyebrows curled at your tearful response.

"Because I thought we'd be something more!"

It was quiet again, except for your small sobs which Changbin didn't seem to notice. He started the unrhythmic tapping of his fingers once more and became lost in thought. There's always strings attached, he noted to himself.

Your knuckles were white again as you clenched your fists against a pillow. You realized whenever you were with Changbin nowadays, your knuckles always turned white.

"I deserve to be chosen, not merely considered when you need to f*ck." Your eyes shot venom at him. His light tappings on the wood stopped abruptly. Your tone stung his heart just as much as it did yours. You were different now. You had grown up, and Changbin completely missed that detail.

"You're right." Changbin stood and collected his coat. "You're right," he echoed quietly.

"Wait, Bin." You stumbled out of bed and rushed to follow Changbin. "Don't leave, no. Please." You weren't crying anymore; you were heaving.

"Y/n, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I've been using you. It's not right, and you know it." He shuffled to put his shoes on while you bit your inner cheek. "Thank you for showing me how much of a jerk I've been. I'm sorry; I need to go."

Changbin's fingers gripped the doorknob; he walked out of your life like you were nothing. You slumped to the floor in pain. You sent away the only friend you had at uni, even if you really weren't friends anymore.

"I shouldn't have said anything," you cried to the walls that trapped you. "I don't want to lose you." It was a whisper now. You were dehydrated from the spills of tears. Your nose was runny, and your lips were chapped. You were a mess because of the boy you should've loved just a little harder.

[silencecunt]

Kankri is not a good person, nor is he a bad person. In my view, he is a wildly misunderstood character--both by the people who love him and the people who hate him. Both sides like to take only parts of his character and ignore the others that don't align with their perception of him. There is no harm in that, per say, but it does an incredible disservice to him as a character.

The Alpha trolls are, generally speaking, two-dimensional. They are caricatures of certain online groups meant to satirize those aforementioned groups. In Kankri's case, it's the SJWs of tumblr. At the time of Kankri's conception, social justice on tumblr was notorious for being outrageously PC and, hypocritically, malicious. People were threatened and "cancelled" over the stupidest of things. Naturally, this trend still exists and has spread from tumblr; however, it is not to the degree that it once was as those SJWs have now matured and created a healthier space (for the most part).

Kankri is a representation of the worst parts of those people--he is overly concerned with saying the "right" thing at all times, ignoring that words don't matter if your actions don't reflect them. Quite literally, Kankri is all talk. He lectures anyone he can about their "triggering" behavior while turning around and engaging in that same behavior when it suits him.

Therein lies the Mituna problem. Kankri is overly considerate of Latula's lack of sense of smell, Cronus's humankin, Horuss's belief he is two-spirit, etc. even when those (such as the case with Latula) don't actually care all that much. He does this because it's what he cares about and that's all that matters to him. But he doesn't care about Mituna. My interpretation is because he is jealous of him. Kankri is flushed for Latula, who is Mituna's matesprite, but Kankri doesn't think Mituna deserves to be in a relationship with Latula likely due to his cerebral trauma. A trauma he acquired after destroying himself in an ultimately futile attempt to save his friends, which is another reason Kankri is jealous of him. Much like Karkat, Kankri served as the leader of the group. Despite this, he was unable to rally the troops together due to his more passive approach in juxtaposition to Karkat's abrasive leadership style and general nature. Seeing Mituna act so boldly, doing something Kankri was unable to, was a hit to his ego. Already people don't like him and here Mituna was, making him look like even more of a useless asshole.

So, Kankri resents him. He doesn't want to care about Mituna, so he doesn't. Anger, bitterness, jealousy, whatever the case may be, he does not respect Mituna. Regardless, Kankri is Kankri. The way he speaks to him, insulting him and his entire existence, is phrased in such a manner that pins Mituna's disability as a flaw that he needs to work on. So much so, Mituna is obligated to apologize. Now, Mituna is not an innocent infantile thing that does nothing wrong and isn't a jackass himself because all trolls are jackasses. He is crude and can be inconsiderate of others. Regardless, Kankri does not approach the matter in a constructive way, seemingly almost glossing over those fair criticisms in favor of low blows.

This is something that is fundamental to Kankri's character. There are plenty of things he is right about, however he handles it in such a way that it only comes across as pretentious swill that no one wants to listen to. Alternatively, he overlooks those valid points to unjustly attack another's character. But, that doesn't mean he is always wrong.

Kankri, at his core, cares deeply and passionately. Whether or not you agree with what he concerns himself with doesn't matter because he will continue to feel the way he does with everything he has. His passion is palpable. The most notorious of which is the Beforian hemospectrum.

Under pre-scratch Feferi, culling doesn't mean killing. Rather, lowbloods are seen as incapable of taking care of themselves, so highbloods are responsible for them. Kind of like a pet. While not being killed is nice, being treated as a second--maybe even third-class citizen is still oppression. Kankri sees this and resents how their society functions. He doesn't want to be coddled and treated like he is inept because he isn't. Subscribing to how society wants him to behave would be a fate worse than death. If he cannot be independent and think for himself, doing what he thinks is best without the concern of others looming over him at every step he takes, he would rather die. These are the beliefs he held even as the Signless, although with different context. Thus, his motivation for his personal boundaries. When Porrim tells him he has grubsauce on his face and tries to clean it himself, he flips out. Porrim is high enough on the spectrum to be considered able to take care of him, and Kankri does not want any part of it. The mere thought is mortifying to him. Being touched is something that is (actually) triggering to him. He doesn't want pity, he wants respect. Even if his friends hate him and think he's annoying, at least he's being himself.

When Porrim wishes to discuss issues regarding women, Kankri doesnt want to hear it. Here is where many call him misogynistic, but I implore you to consider not applying human society onto the trolls because it doesn't make sense. Trolls are a matriarchal society, what with the empress being in total control. And, so far as we know, it has always been an empress. We don't know just how much gender affects things considering the hemospectrum plays such a large role in how everyone falls in society. My interpretation is that gender is nowhere near as big of a deal as it is with humans. Even if it were, between fusciabloods being primarily female and rulers, and jadebloods also primarily female and nurturing the Mothergrub (aka how all trolls are born), I don't feel it's too far a stretch to say that the women of trollian society are not oppressed. I don't believe the men are oppressed either because I feel that gender isn't much of a consideration for trolls, but that is just my interpretation.

That being said, Porrim expresses her concern that their matriarchal society was a false one operating under Lord English, ergo making it patriarchal in nature. Kankri does not share that view, feeling that it's a non-starter. In his view, Lord English's actions truly had no effect in that regard. Why would a time traveling demon set on destroying everything worry about frivolous details such as ensuring women are beaten down? In Kankri's eyes, it's stupid to assume he would even bother.

Regarding Kankri's celibacy, it's another example of Kankri merely trying to keep his chin high in the air and feel as if he is better than everyone else. His intellect is too high to concern himself with the oppressive nature the quadrants come with. It seems too much like another means to be controlled. However, his commitment to it is...questionable. Porrim and him are essentially moirails in everything but the name due to Kankri's pride. Not to mention, his flushcrush on Latula. If he were truly committed to his Vow, he would not pursue this crush as much as he does. All Latula has to do is say the word and Kankri would drop his celibacy like a hot potato. Again, another example of how he is willing to say the "right" things, but his actions do not reflect that. This hypocrisy is one of Kankri's defining traits. He simply cannot put his money where his mouth is despite the mountain of effort he puts into convincing everyone how serious he is.

As someone who admires social justice, he doesn't care for the Signless. His official reasoning is in regards to a difference in approach. While the Signless's rebellion reflects the violent society of Alternia, Kankri expresses how he feels a more peaceful method would have been better, a reflection of the peaceful society he was raised in. He feels that words hold more power than violence, something those baser than him resort to.

Perhaps this is due to the tenderness I hold for him, but I think the reasoning runs deeper than that. All of his friends liked hearing about the Signless, Aranea in particular. So much so that she wears his symbol around her neck. This is something that clearly bothers Kankri, but is it really just over a difference in opinions? At the end of the day, the Signless is Kankri. My theory is because everyone likes his post-scratch self better than they like him. The people who he considers his friends, who he trusts to return when they leave mid-sermon, who he tried to lead and protect can't stand him, referring to him as the Insufferable. Wouldn't that hurt you, too? He knows he's long-winded, he knows he preachy, he knows people find him irritating, he knows. Naturally, Kankri doesn't let it show, but he wants his friends to like him. The only person who (kind of) listens to him and actually treats him with respect is the crowned worst character of homestuck, Cronus. It affects him to hear how much others admire the deeds of someone who is him when, in truth, he is not really that person.

Many of the core traits in Karkat exist in Kankri. They are both drawn to leadership, drawn to helping their friends, short-tempered, and emotional. Kankri says a multitude of harsh things, things that are much crueler than the what Karkat says, and it's important to acknowledge Kankri's cruelty. That doesn't detract from the fact that Kankri does care for others, even if his feelings towards them are less than pleasant, because that's who the Vantases are. They are deeply flawed and oftentimes foul-mouthed people, and yet, at the end of the day, they still care fiercely. Kankri is not some disinterested, detached critic. He is just as much a part of the group as the others and he wants what is best for them. If he didn't care, he wouldn't bother lecturing. No matter how annoying and egocentric you are, no one likes to waste their time.

At the end of the day, Kankri is not a perfect person. Far from it. But he's endearing and he's relatable and he's flawed. None of the trolls are good people. They are all assholes who say fucked up things. They use the r-slur, they make fun of Tavros for his wheelchair, Meenah is elated that her post-scratch self commits genocide on the regular, Vriska. Just Vriska. A lot of the hate I see regarding Kankri reduces him to a soulless monster who's only goal is to insult and talk down to everyone in his way. A lot of the admiration I see boils him down to an uwu sweet innocent blushy baby when that is the furthest thing from the truth. He's a snarky bastard who gives a fuck about his friends, even if they spit in his face because he spits right back. Please respect his depth, even if you interpret things differently from how I did. He is not as flat as many make him out to be. No one in homestuck is.

[wunderlass]

Max Evans, King of Consent

For some reason, within the fandom, Max has got a bit of a reputation as a weird, creepy stalker when it comes to Liz. And I really don’t understand where this came from, because that is not what was presented to us on screen. At all.

Let’s examine the evidence, shall we?

tl;dr: He isn’t, you didn’t pay attention to the show and leapt to conclusions

The teen years:

The little we see of Echo growing up, we know Max and Liz have some level of friendship. Max plays a supportive role to her, especially in their senior year. But Liz was with Kyle, and there’s no evidence Max ever bad-mouthed Kyle or tried to get in their way, despite the fact that Kyle was an obnoxious jerk at that point.

Max makes plans for the future that don’t involve Liz. Only after their “moment” at the prom, when Liz is single, does Max make a move. By this point we know Liz is beginning to reciprocate his feelings. Their desert date is sweet, and almost ends in a kiss--but when Liz pulls away, Max’s first instinct is to apologise. He doesn’t push Liz to kiss him when she explains why she won’t, or argue with her plans. Instead, he only expresses regret--as does Liz. It’s clear that she thinks a kiss between them is a significant event and that how she feels may be as intense as how he does.

At this point, Max has everything he’s ever wanted (with regards to Liz) at his fingertips. But he respects Liz’s choices and boundaries. Everything we see of him suggests that if Liz was with Kyle until the end of high school and left Roswell without anything ever happening between them, he’d be okay with that. All he wants, all he has ever wanted, is for Liz to be happy--and if that’s with another man, then so be it.

Then he suggests, tentatively, that he come along on the roadtrip, and Liz is overjoyed at the idea. They make plans. Everything goes to shit, and Liz leaves. Max gives her the space to say goodbye to her family without seeking out one of his own, understanding that if she hasn’t sought him out, she has no intention of doing so. He lets her go and takes the emotional hit in silence. He doesn’t follow her. His reasons for this are complex--he has to stay for his siblings, and he feels guilty over his involvement in Rosa’s death--but it’s clear he doesn’t expect anything further from Liz at this point.

Present time in the season:

In 2018, Max’s understanding of consent has only improved. He refuses to kiss her in the pilot while assuming his feelings are having an impact on her ability to agree to it. He repeats that refusal in episode two for the same reason. Liz is the one in pursuit here, and Max is arguably trying to give her space until any influence he’s having on her has passed.

Also in episode two, she tells him she’s leaving Roswell. He accepts this. He was expecting it, even if he’s not happy about it. At the end of the episode, he’s gutted when she tells him that she doesn’t have feelings for him, but he doesn’t argue with her about it. He accepts it before she’s even finished telling him there will be no kiss. Liz is the one who manipulates him to spend more time together, and when he realises he’s being manipulated, he makes plans to try and move forward with somebody else, under the impression that Liz will be leaving town soon and he can lick his wounds when she’s gone.

Arguably in these early episodes Liz seeks out Max more than the other way around. She goes looking for him to collect his DNA in the pilot (which, let’s face it, is ethically ambiguous at best). She’s going to confront him when he comes to find her and confess his secret. She summons him to the church, and also to the turquoise mines. At the end of episode three they have a big confrontation over Max’s love letter, and he finally confesses the depths of his feelings. He does this to try and answer some of her questions, and because she’s pushing him to explain himself, not because he’s expecting reciprocation. Liz is the one who started this confrontation, not Max, and he walks away from it.

Not all of Max’s reactions are healthy--he blows up the town after this confrontation. Yet this seems to be as much a side effect of healing Liz as it is his emotions. He’s calmer in the next episode, and turns his attention to what he believes will be a strategy to ensure Liz leaves town.

That’s right. He’s so entitled to Liz that he plans to make sure she leaves Roswell. What a foolproof plan to win the girl, right?

There is another Echo confrontation at the end of episode four, where Max asks Liz to tell him how she feels. The question may come across as demanding, but by this point he knows she’s been playing with his feelings. He also knows she’s spilled the secret she promised to keep. His anger here is quiet and non-threatening. He’s asking for the truth, not demanding that she return his feelings. He wants closure but he expects to never see her again after this confrontation: his final words to her are a goodbye.

When he finds out in episode five that Michael and Isobel sent her away in 2008, he does demand to know where she is, because he wants to give her this truth. However, that revelation is interrupted by her being in danger, and he rushes to her rescue. He never does tell her about that himself. Liz comes to his house to make sure he’s okay, and from there the secrets from ten years ago come spilling out. Liz tells Max to stay away from her--and he does. He doesn’t plead with her or try to justify himself. He lets her go, again.

(He is hurt and angry, and that spills out around him in episode seven, but it is not directed at Liz, who he recognises deserves her own anger).

In fact he abides by this so well over the next couple of episodes that at the beginning of episode nine things are noticeably awkward between them. Liz has been working to save Isobel, and realistically this is only because of her own unvoiced feelings for Max, but he continues to give her space. We’ve seen him avoiding her in episodes seven and eight, and now Max is so careful of her boundaries that he misses all the signals she’s giving him. When she’s cold, he asks if he can give her his jacket, rather than assuming she wants it. She approaches him several times over the course of the episode (outside the tents, in the bar), and in the end, she’s the one who initiates the kiss. This is after he has made a grand speech about how he loves her despite her flaws--then turned his back to walk away because he still assumes her feelings towards him have not changed.

The entire season shows that Max is so careful of how he approaches Liz. Consent matters to him (and yes, the healing scene with Michael in the finale is deliberately out of character) and he never expects Liz to return his feelings. Any time she hints that she doesn’t return them, he blindly accepts this because he’s working under the assumption she could never love him. Similarly, he misses the obvious signs that she does have feelings for him. He prioritises what she says over her body language and behaviours, making no presumptions until she literally reels him in for a kiss. His self-esteem is somewhere in the depths of the desert outside of Roswell, and it’s going to take a lot of work to unearth it.

So where has this collective fanon come from? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a combination of a few things. 

Max is a big guy. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, but I think his size and his anger issues in the early episodes (which the show went to great pains to explain were out of character) had people deciding he was some kind of alphahole trope. And once they’d decided that, it didn’t matter what actually happened on the show, they were going to see Max’s feelings for Liz as selfish, his pining as something he was trying to make her problem, her love something he felt entitled to. I also believe there’s a certain amount of “straight white man, let’s hate him because he isn’t oppressed” going on, which completely misunderstands what privilege is. (I believe that because I’ve seen it expressed that way, I’m not pulling that out of nothing).

Also, throughout the season Max and Michael have a slightly adversarial relationship. Michael is something of a fan-favourite and that has led to people siding with him over Max, even where Michael was wrong (see: the end of episode 12/beginning of episode 13, where Michael got himself killed by Noah because he refused to listen to Max). 

You don’t have to love or even like Max. But if any of your critique of him as a character starts from a place of “he felt entitled to Liz” or “he was a stalker”, then I’m going to dismiss you out of hand, because you haven’t been paying attention to what was actually happening in the show.

Let’s give the last word to our leading lady:

“I love him--and he loves me. I wish you had the chance to have someone love you, Rosa. Purely. Without expectation or entitlement.”

See? Liz gets it.

(Also, just in case any of this seems anti-Liz, it’s not. Liz was justified in all of her actions during the show).

[babes-and-baddies]

Best to worse lov member to lose your virginity to lmao

how exactly do you define ‘best’, my dude? is it superior skill, emotional intimacy and mutual trust, a secure relationship going forward, a lack of commitments and hangups? because depending on your needs, there are reasons any one of the LOV could be the best to give up your v-card to,,, and i, a humble thirsty hoe, shall explain all of those reasons by explaining just what it’d be like to have your first time with them

that said, here’s my Hot Take (under cut because i went overboard lmao…, NSFW, obvi):

Kurogiri:     He’s an absolute gentleman, and an experienced one at that. Kurogiri can take you apart with ease, touch you just so, and still make you relax against him as he takes the lead and shows just how good sex can get. He’s the type to take his time, noticing your tics and turn-ons and paying mind to your newly-discovered limits before you even know what it is you like. Kurogiri would make sure you feel secure, satiated; even after you cum, he’ll take care to check in with a glass of warped-over water to ensure you’re feeling alright. Plus, if you make it a thing, well. Once he knows your weaknesses, what you need, he’d be more than happy to push some boundaries and experiment with some of your more…. questionable of fantasies. He may be a gentleman, but he’s still a rather alternative-minded one; such is the fate for those who become villains. Lucky you ;)

Twice:     While he may not seem the type to be so high on the list at first, you’ve got to admit that Jin’s got a lot going for him here. Loyal, caring, humorous, and extremely considerate, Twice is a perfect choice for those who want something fun, tender, safe and passionate for their first time. If he sees you as a friend or teammate, Jin is more than willing to go the extra mile to take things over-the-top and give you a night you’ll never want to forget, even if it it’s far from the high-finesse perfection you could get elsewhere. Jin also has another talent invaluable for your first time: he knows how to make you laugh and let go. Carefree humour meets unashamed affection, and whenever something awkward or embarrassing happens it can be brushed off without concern. Do you make a weird and unattractive noise, or end up falling off the bed in a tangle of limbs? Jin would only respond with a light heart, taking in all your ‘flaws’ as something natural and fun, showing that it’s okay to not hang up on the ‘imperfections’ that simply make your time together real.  You have nothing to worry about, since sex is weird, right? Especially your first time. And guess what, Jin’s a bit weird too! Why should that make them any less good?To be with Jin is intimate but stress-free, passionate but light-hearted, and you can let go knowing that your comfort and feelings come first. The only downside is that he might think your trust is so precious, your time together so special, that he might just fall in love with you. But with a sweetheart like Jin, that’s more an extra benefit than anything. How could you make love to him and not feel the same in return? 

Magne:    As someone who calls upon self-respect and a deep loyalty to her teammates, if you find yourself by Magne’s side you can trust her to treat you with all the care you deserve. She would do anything for her friends, for her loved ones, and if you give your virginity to her it’s sure to be given the weight it deserves. After all, she knows full well the impact of self-autonomy and choosing how to use and inhabit your own body. With you supporting and trusting her own self, Magne knows the importance of returning the favour.And if there’s romance in the equation? All the better! But either way, Magne looks out for her own. While she may be more vanilla, she’s someone who puts your needs and boundaries first without expecting anything extra of you. And if what you need is a safe, comfortable first time with someone you can trust, she’s got you covered. 

Compress:     Sako is who you go to when you want skill, with a side of respectful detachment. There’s less intimacy, less care, but when you want to fuck the first time just to see what it’s like and get it over with already, or to finally get into it without having to worry about all the messy details, Sako can take care of it. So there’s less intimacy, sure, but fuck does he make up for it by knowing how to use what he’s got. He’s the type to take his time, to tease, to make a show of it for both your and his viewing pleasure, and he’s got the swift hands and cunning tongue to make taking you apart only the first act. He can ease you into things, but soon enough you might find yourself wanting even more of what he has to offer. 

Spinner:    While Spinner may not seem like someone to have your first time with, consider: shy + disciplined + beefy = very enthusiastic and eager-to-please good time. I’ll be the first to admit he may not have much in the way of experience, but Shuichi more than makes up for it in dedication. If you’re willing to not only fuck him, but share something so special as your first time, then he’s going to make extra sure to take care of you in every way possible. He’s here to prove a point - a point both to you and to himself- and show that you made the right choice in spending your first time with him. He’s strong enough to try things out, eager enough to listen to direction; one setback, though, may come in the form of his cluelessness and own desire to make it good for himself. But don’t worry, if you make it clear how special this moment is, he’s back on track in a second.Just make sure to give him ample time to prepare himself, okay? A day’s warning could make all the difference- because if he’s not expecting anything, his inexperience combined with his excitement could lead to a few problems in the ‘actually making you feel good’ department. 

Giran:     This old man’s a total sleeze, but he’s a loyal one; Giran stays true to his own and gives as good as he gets, so with something special like your first time, he’ll take care of you real good. After all, your virginity is pretty ‘special’, no? This here is someone who knows how to properly appreciate it.With lots of experience up his sleeve, Giran knows just how to make you feel real good, how to show you the ropes and get the most out of both your and his pleasure. Just remember it’s nothing personal. He’s still going to respect you after it all, but don’t expect any touchy-feely. You both had fun, both got something valuable out of it, and isn’t that what matters?Bonus: if you fuck him reaaal good, there might just be some future opportunities regarding… business negotiations. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a sugar daddy by any chance, would you? Because there might be one on the market.

Tomura:     On the chance he has no sexual or romantic interest in you, he’d not bother to accept your offer in the first place and instead recommend you find someone else to take care of you. If he is somehow interested, then, well.The best reason to give your virginity to Tomura is also the worst reason to do so: he thinks stealing your first time is hot as fuck. Virginity kinks are a thing, and Tomura is a sure example. There’s something alluring about taking something so precious, tainting something so innocent; naively offer yourself to him and Tomura wants to ruin you, have you all to himself and hold on to everything he can. Sure, doing this may lead to some issues of possessiveness  and eventual unhealthy relationship dynamics on his part, but it can lead to a damn good fuck if you play your cards right and call on his desire to be the only one to please you.  And if you like him, offering your virginity is a great way to make- and keep- him interested. On the downside, your comfort and security are more conditional on how he feels and expect things to play out. When he truly cares- sees you as a friend, a love interest- then everything is great as long as you continue to give him the love and trust shown in offering such a precious part of yourself; he’d be sure to repay that trust in taking care of you. But if you try to distance yourself afterwards, try to say your time together was casual or without intimacy, he wouldn’t take too kindly to it. Tomura chose to accept you like this, and that means you’re his. And he took care of you, right? It’s only fair you take care of him in return, with your love and loyalty. It’s really in your best interest from that point on to accept that and trust him to keep you.

Dabi:     Dabi’s who you’d want to go to if you don’t care much about this whole ‘virginity’ thing, if you want something rough, something good, but something without any serious commitment coming out of it. An awkward but kinky virgin who wants to get fucked up? Curious about sex but uncaring about boundaries and uninterested in romance? Dabi’s your guy. He can blow your mind with beautiful degradation and thoughtful apathy, and continue to act as if nothing has changed the next morning aside from the occasional innuendo at your expense. He doesn’t care much about the ‘first time’ thing unless he somehow caught the feelings; if that’s the case than you better hope you got your relationship figured out before sex entered the equation, otherwise it could be the difference between a tender fuck and the blatant disregard of any connection as he ignores his feelings. Sure, if you’re friends or comrades he might be more gentle out of respect, and of course giving him your virginity when you’re together would be sweet, but otherwise? Well, you didn’t come to him for sweet or gentle. Dabi’s ready to show just how good it can feel to act bad, the pleasure found in pain, and you better hope you’re prepared for it. 

Toga:      Maybe,,,, maybe Toga isn’t the best idea here. For starters, maybe wait a few years, yeah? Or pick someone a little closer to your own age? Unless you’re a kid, but even then,,, there are still probably some better options out there. Toga’s idea of ’love’ isn’t something that would turn out well for you, and her version of ‘friendship’ isn’t much better if Uraraka is any example. The only people who seem safe are her teammates, her found family. If you’re in the LOV, someone precious enough to her to not want dead, you can probably have sex with her and make it out alive; the whole romance aspect of ‘sharing your first time with her’ wont make it easy, but at least you’d have a chance. Basically: please love yourself. Find someone who wouldn’t want to kill you. And please, maybe stick to fellow adults, yeah?

                 BONUS: 

   10.   Moonfish: Best choice for fans of vore, and fans of vore ONLY

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

answer asap pls. my religious elder dad wants me to read two Ex-gay books ("The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert" and "Gay Girl Good God" specifically); I came out in April as nonbinary and bi. I try to get him to hear me but it feels so one-way; plus I end up shutting down when he starts "debating" all these points, so it makes me look like I dont have anything. pls help me

cw: ex gay books mentioned

Hey there, anon. I am so sorry that you are in this situation. You deserve family that respects you and hears you out. I pray that the Holy Spirit will work at softening the heart of your father; in the meantime, I pray that you can find other people, online or offline, to go to for support and comfort. 

I’m going to start by saying I feel like I’m out of my depth here, so if anyone else has suggestions or encouragement for anon regarding what to do in this situation, please share it!

That being said, I’m going to toss a bunch of possibilities at you below, and you can read through and see if any seem like they’d work in your context.

______

To start with, the most important thing for you to know is that you do not have any obligation to “debate” your dad, or anyone else, about who you are and whether or not it’s okay. You have no duty to spend your precious mental, spiritual, and emotional energy on anyone, but especially not someone who doesn’t seem to even be willing to hear out your side of things. It’s not your job to change his mind. Your job is to keep yourself safe.

If you shut down and if these debates distress you, I recommend setting boundaries with your dad: for example, when he starts these debates, tell him you will not be participating for as long as you continue to feel unheard. If he persists, walk away. 

You know the context and your dad better than I do, of course – only do that if you feel it is safe! If you fear his reaction to you walking away will be violent or otherwise distressing for you, you may unfortunately have to sit through whatever he wants to say. Even if that is the case, it’s not your job to “convince” him or “win” the conversation; your priority is keeping yourself as safe and comfortable as possible. 

Again, you know the context of your family much better than I do; you also know better than I do whether reading one of the books your dad suggested would be harmful to your spiritual or mental health. If I were in your shoes as someone who feels I could read an ex-gay story and feel sad and upset but not have my faith shaken, what I would probably do is agree to read one of the books but only if my dad in return would read one book that I suggested. And he has to really read it – don’t read all of your book only to finish and he hasn’t even started his; maybe for every chapter you read you make sure he’s also read a chapter of the book you suggested, if that makes sense. 

If you do want to recommend a book to him, here’s a post with some options.

The hope I would have in making my dad do this is that maybe, just maybe, something in the book I recommended would speak to him and start him on the road to changing his mind; but unfortunately, that’s not at all guaranteed. It might could be that your dad could read a hundred LGBT-affirming books and retain his views at the end. So if you do something like this, do what you can to protect yourself from disappointment if things don’t turn out the way you want; cultivating support from other people in your life so that you can turn to them for comfort and a place to vent is one way to prepare. 

If the whole getting him to read a book in return thing doesn’t sound like it would fit your situation, I return to that idea of setting boundaries. If refusing to engage point blank and walking away doesn’t seem like the right option for you, what about telling him you only want to have written-out discussions on this topic? I know that for me, having the time to gather my thoughts and articulate them right, and to gather up helpful resources, is much better than having to answer immediately – especially when the subject is so emotional and important to me. 

If your dad is someone who would listen to something like this, maybe try some “I feel” statements with him, too: “I feel unheard when we have these conversations; like you are just talking at me instead of with me.” “I feel hurt and distressed by these conversations, and scared that if I don’t change the way you want me to, you won’t love me anymore.” – sentences like that. If your dad understood how these debates make you feel, do you think that would change the way he talks with you? If not, this probably isn’t the best option. 

One last possibility, if your dad insists on having these conversations, is to bring in a mediator. There are counselors out there whose job is to mediate arguments, to make sure that both sides feel listened to and that the conversation doesn’t devolve into yelling or whatnot. You could look into an unbiased mediator like that and see if your dad would be interested in something like that (I’ll say again, you would know better than I do whether that seems like something your dad would ever consider). 

________________

I’ll close by offering you a couple more posts to look at, in case any of them have encouragement or tips that might help you.

The first is a “letter” I once wrote to anti-LGBT Christians. I’m not sure that I’d recommend sending it directly to your dad, but you could read it over and see if anything in it seems like something he might respond well to. 

In my #conversion therapy tag, you should find some resources about how being gay is not a choice and trying to change doesn’t help. Same with my #ex gay tag. This stuff is probably not going to convince your dad if he doesn’t want to be convinced, but if you have to hear him talk about ex gay stories, it might help you to have some counter-narratives to read. 

Hang in there, anon. It’s unfortunately unlikely that your dad is going to have a change of heart any time soon, so your priority is to protect yourself.