I know this can seem the simplest cure, but it often causes more harm than good. there was a reason you left, there was a reason they left. you will become stronger, I promise.
(via tonyinthesky)
HAIM - Want You Back
Paulo Coelho, By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept
(via aseaofquotes)
(via jlon86)
His hand froze. “A girl.”
“A watcher,” said Stonesnake. “A wildling. Finish her.”
Jon could see fear and fire in her eyes. Blood ran down her white throat from where the point of his dirk had pricked her. One thrust and it’s done, he told himself. He was so close he could smell onion on her breath. She is no older than I am. Something about her made him think of Arya, though they looked nothing at all alike. “Will you yield?” he asked, giving the dirk a half turn. And if she doesn’t?
“I yield.” Her words steamed in the cold air.
“You’re our captive, then.” He pulled the dirk away from the soft skin of her throat.
“Qhorin said nothing of taking captives,” said Stonesnake.
“He never said not to.” Jon let go his grip on the girl’s hair, and she scuttled backward, away from them.
“She’s a spearwife.” Stonesnake gestured at the long-hafted axe that lay beside her sleeping furs. “She was reaching for that when you grabbed her. Give her half a chance and she’ll bury it between your eyes.”
“I won’t give her half a chance.” Jon kicked the axe well out of the girl’s reach. “Do you have a name?”
“Ygritte.” Her hand rubbed at her throat and came away bloody. She stared at the wetness.
Sheathing his dirk, he wrenched Longclaw free from the body of the man he’d killed. “You are my captive, Ygritte.”
“I gave you my name.”
“I’m Jon Snow.”
She flinched. “An evil name.”
“A bastard name,” he said. “My father was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell.”
(…)
“A steel kiss will keep her quiet.”
Jon’s throat was raw. He looked at them all helplessly. “She yielded herself to me.”
“Then you must do what needs be done,” Qhorin Halfhand said. “You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night’s Watch.” He looked at the others. “Come, brothers. Leave him to it. It will go easier for him if we do not watch.” And he led them up the steep twisting trail toward the pale pink glow of the sun where it broke through a mountain cleft, and before very long only Jon and Ghost remained with the wildling girl.
He thought Ygritte might try to run, but she only stood there, waiting, looking at him. “You never killed a woman before, did you?” When he shook his head, she said, “We die the same as men. But you don’t need to do it. Mance would take you, I know he would. There’s secret ways. Them crows would never catch us.”
“I’m as much a crow as they are,” Jon said.
She nodded, resigned. “Will you burn me, after?”
“I can’t. The smoke might be seen.”
“That’s so.” She shrugged. “Well, there’s worse places to end up than the belly of a shadowcat.”
He pulled Longclaw over a shoulder. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Last night I was,” she admitted. “But now the sun’s up.” She pushed her hair aside to bare her neck, and knelt before him. “Strike hard and true, crow, or I’ll come back and haunt you.”
Longclaw was not so long or heavy a sword as his father’s Ice, but it was Valyrian steel all the same. He touched the edge of the blade to mark where the blow must fall, and Ygritte shivered. “That’s cold,” she said. “Go on, be quick about it.”
He raised Longclaw over his head, both hands tight around the grip. One cut, with all my weight behind it. He could give her a quick clean death, at least. He was his father’s son. Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?
“Do it,” she urged him after a moment. “Bastard. Do it. I can’t stay brave forever.” When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him.
Jon lowered his sword. “Go,” he muttered.
Ygritte stared.
“Now,” he said, “before my wits return. Go.”
She went.
Jon VI, A Clash of Kings.
1 year ago on September 28, 2017 at 03:24am
“Renly’s death was no fault of yours. You served him valiantly, but when you seek to follow him into the earth, you serve no one.” She stretched out a hand, to give what comfort a touch could give. “I know how hard it is—”
Brienne shook off her hand. “No one knows.”
“You’re wrong,” Catelyn said sharply. “Every morning, when I wake, I remember that Ned is gone. I have no skill with swords, but that does not mean that I do not dream of riding to King’s Landing and wrapping my hands around Cersei Lannister’s white throat and squeezing until her face turns black.”
The Beauty raised her eyes, the only part of her that was truly beautiful. “If you dream that, why would you seek to hold me back? Is it because of what Stannis said at the parley?”
Was it? Catelyn glanced across the camp. Two men were walking sentry, spears in hand. “I was taught that good men must fight evil in this world, and Renly’s death was evil beyond all doubt. Yet I was also taught that the gods make kings, not the swords of men. If Stannis is our rightful king—”
“He’s not. Robert was never the rightful king either, even Renly said as much. Jaime Lannister murdered the rightful king, after Robert killed his lawful heir on the Trident. Where were the gods then? The gods don’t care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.”
“A good king does care.”
“Lord Renly … His Grace, he … he would have been the best king, my lady, he was so good, he …”
“He is gone, Brienne,” she said, as gently as she could. “Stannis and Joffrey remain … and so does my son.”
“He wouldn’t … you’d never make a peace with Stannis, would you? Bend the knee? You wouldn’t …”
“I will tell you true, Brienne. I do not know. My son may be a king, but I am no queen … only a mother who would keep her children safe, however she could.”
“I am not made to be a mother. I need to fight.”
“Then fight … but for the living, not the dead. Renly’s enemies are Robb’s enemies as well.”
Brienne stared at the ground and shuffled her feet. “I do not know your son, my lady.” She looked up. “I could serve you. If you would have me.”
Catelyn was startled. “Why me?”
The question seemed to trouble Brienne. “You helped me. In the pavilion … when they thought that I had … that I had …”
“You were innocent.”
“Even so, you did not have to do that. You could have let them kill me. I was nothing to you.”
Perhaps I did not want to be the only one who knew the dark truth of what had happened there, Catelyn thought. “Brienne, I have taken many wellborn ladies into my service over the years, but never one like you. I am no battle commander.”
“No, but you have courage. Not battle courage perhaps but … I don’t know … a kind of woman’s courage. And I think, when the time comes, you will not try and hold me back. Promise me that. That you will not hold me back from Stannis.”
Catelyn could still hear Stannis saying that Robb’s turn too would come in time. It was like a cold breath on the back of her neck. “When the time comes, I will not hold you back.”
The tall girl knelt awkwardly, unsheathed Renly’s longsword, and laid it at her feet. “Then I am yours, my lady. Your liege man, or … whatever you would have me be. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”
“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise.” As she clasped the other woman’s hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile. How many times did I watch Ned accept a man’s oath of service? She wondered what he would think if he could see her now.
Catelyn V, A Clash of Kings.
1 year ago on September 25, 2017 at 03:19pm
And at that point, I just figure if you don’t get the joke, you don’t deserve to get the joke.
Taylor addressing the ridiculous things said/written about her for the past few years
(via passinnotesinsecrecy)
I should have let the fire have them. Gendry said to, I should have listened. If she hadn’t thrown them that axe they’d all be dead. For a moment she was afraid, but they rode past her without a flicker of interest. Only Jaqen H’ghar so much as glanced in her direction, and his eyes passed right over her. He does not know me, she thought. Arry was a fierce little boy with a sword, and I’m just a grey mouse girl with a pail.
She spent the rest of that day scrubbing steps inside the Wailing Tower. By evenfall her hands were raw and bleeding and her arms so sore they trembled when she lugged the pail back to the cellar. Too tired even for food, Arya begged Weese’s pardons and crawled into her straw to sleep. “Weese,” she yawned. “Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” She thought she might add three more names to her prayer, but she was too tired to decide tonight.
Arya was dreaming of wolves running wild through the wood when a strong hand clamped down over her mouth like smooth warm stone, solid and unyielding. She woke at once, squirming and struggling. “A girl says nothing,” a voice whispered close behind her ear. “A girl keeps her lips closed, no one hears, and friends may talk in secret. Yes?”
Heart pounding, Arya managed the tiniest of nods.
Jaqen H’ghar took his hand away. The cellar was black as pitch and she could not see his face, even inches away. She could smell him, though; his skin smelled clean and soapy, and he had scented his hair. “A boy becomes a girl,” he murmured.
“I was always a girl. I didn’t think you saw me.”
“A man sees. A man knows.”
She remembered that she hated him. “You scared me. You’re one of them now, I should have let you burn. What are you doing here? Go away or I’ll yell for Weese.”
“A man pays his debts. A man owes three.”
“Three?”
“The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life. This girl took three that were his. This girl must give three in their places. Speak the names, and a man will do the rest.”
He wants to help me, Arya realized with a rush of hope that made her dizzy. “Take me to Riverrun, it’s not far, if we stole some horses we could—”
He laid a finger on her lips. “Three lives you shall have of me. No more, no less. Three and we are done. So a girl must ponder.” He kissed her hair softly. “But not too long.”
By the time Arya lit her stub of a candle, only a faint smell remained of him, a whiff of ginger and cloves lingering in the air. The woman in the next niche rolled over on her straw and complained of the light, so Arya blew it out. When she closed her eyes, she saw faces swimming before her. Joffrey and his mother, Ilyn Payne and Meryn Trant and Sandor Clegane … but they were in King’s Landing hundreds of miles away, and Ser Gregor had lingered only a few nights before departing again for more foraging, taking Raff and Chiswyck and the Tickler with him. Ser Amory Lorch was here, though, and she hated him almost as much. Didn’t she? She wasn’t certain. And there was always Weese.
She thought of him again the next morning, when lack of sleep made her yawn. “Weasel,” Weese purred, “next time I see that mouth droop open, I’ll pull out your tongue and feed it to my bitch.” He twisted her ear between his fingers to make certain she’d heard, and told her to get back to those steps, he wanted them clean down to the third landing by nightfall.
As she worked, Arya thought about the people she wanted dead. She pretended she could see their faces on the steps, and scrubbed harder to wipe them away. The Starks were at war with the Lannisters and she was a Stark, so she should kill as many Lannisters as she could, that was what you did in wars. But she didn’t think she should trust Jaqen. I should kill them myself. Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his greatsword. “If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words,” she’d heard him tell Robb and Jon once.
Arya VII, A Clash of Kings.
1 year ago on July 21, 2017 at 04:49am
“Robb will set aside his crown if you and your brother will do the same,” she said, hoping it was true. She would make it true if she must; Robb would listen to her, even if his lords would not. “Let the three of you call for a Great Council, such as the realm has not seen for a hundred years. We will send to Winterfell, so Bran may tell his tale and all men may know the Lannisters for the true usurpers. Let the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them.”
Renly laughed. “Tell me, my lady, do direwolves vote on who should lead the pack?” Brienne brought the king’s gauntlets and greathelm, crowned with golden antlers that would add a foot and a half to his height. “The time for talk is done. Now we see who is stronger.” Renly pulled a lobstered green-and-gold gauntlet over his left hand, while Brienne knelt to buckle on his belt, heavy with the weight of longsword and dagger.
“I beg you in the name of the Mother,” Catelyn began when a sudden gust of wind flung open the door of the tent. She thought she glimpsed movement, but when she turned her head, it was only the king’s shadow shifting against the silken walls. She heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then she saw Renly’s sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword …
“Cold,” said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat.
“Your Gr—no!” cried Brienne the Blue when she saw that evil flow, sounding as scared as any little girl. The king stumbled into her arms, a sheet of blood creeping down the front of his armor, a dark red tide that drowned his green and gold. More candles guttered out. Renly tried to speak, but he was choking on his own blood. His legs collapsed, and only Brienne’s strength held him up. She threw back her head and screamed, wordless in her anguish.
The shadow. Something dark and evil had happened here, she knew, something that she could not begin to understand. Renly never cast that shadow. Death came in that door and blew the life out of him as swift as the wind snuffed out his candles.
Only a few instants passed before Robar Royce and Emmon Cuy came bursting in, though it felt like half the night. A pair of men-at-arms crowded in behind with torches. When they saw Renly in Brienne’s arms, and her drenched with the king’s blood, Ser Robar gave a cry of horror. “Wicked woman!” screamed Ser Emmon, he of the sunflowered steel. “Away from him, you vile creature!”
“Gods be good, Brienne, why?” asked Ser Robar.
Brienne looked up from her king’s body. The rainbow cloak that hung from her shoulders had turned red where the king’s blood had soaked into the cloth. “I … I …”
“You’ll die for this.” Ser Emmon snatched up a long-handled battle-axe from the weapons piled near the door. “You’ll pay for the king’s life with your own!”
(…)
Renly’s battles were already coming apart as the rumors spread from mouth to mouth. The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm’s End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind. Morning ghosts, she had heard Old Nan call them once, spirits returning to their graves. And Renly one of them now, gone like his brother Robert, like her own dear Ned.
“I never held him but as he died,” Brienne said quietly as they walked through the spreading chaos. Her voice sounded as if she might break at any instant. “He was laughing one moment, and suddenly the blood was everywhere … my lady, I do not understand. Did you see, did you …?”
“I saw a shadow. I thought it was Renly’s shadow at the first, but it was his brother’s.”
“Lord Stannis?”
“I felt him. It makes no sense, I know …”
It made sense enough for Brienne. “I will kill him,” the tall homely girl declared. “With my lord’s own sword, I will kill him. I swear it. I swear it. I swear it.”
Catelyn IV, A Clash of Kings.
1 year ago on May 28, 2017 at 10:14pm
“I can smell the fear on you, ser knight,” the red woman said softly.
“Someone once told me the night is dark and full of terrors. And tonight I am no knight. Tonight I am Davos the smuggler again. Would that you were an onion.”
She laughed. “Is it me you fear? Or what we do?”
“What you do. I’ll have no part of it.”
“Your hand raised the sail. Your hand holds the tiller.”
Silent, Davos tended to his course. The shore was a snarl of rocks, so he was taking them well out across the bay. He would wait for the tide to turn before coming about. Storm’s End dwindled behind them, but the red woman seemed unconcerned. “Are you a good man, Davos Seaworth?” she asked.
Would a good man be doing this? “I am a man,” he said. “I am kind to my wife, but I have known other women. I have tried to be a father to my sons, to help make them a place in this world. Aye, I’ve broken laws, but I never felt evil until tonight. I would say my parts are mixed, m’lady. Good and bad.”
“A grey man,” she said. “Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?”
“What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey.”
“If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil.”
The fires behind them had melted into one vague glow against the black sky, and the land was almost out of sight. It was time to come about. “Watch your head, my lady.” He pushed on the tiller, and the small boat threw up a curl of black water as she turned. Melisandre leaned under the swinging yard, one hand on the gunwale, calm as ever. Wood creaked, canvas cracked, and water splashed, so loudly a man might swear the castle was sure to hear. Davos knew better. The endless crash of wave on rock was the only sound that ever penetrated the massive seaward walls of Storm’s End, and that but faintly.
A rippling wake spread out behind as they swung back toward the shore. “You speak of men and onions,” Davos said to Melisandre. “What of women? Is it not the same for them? Are you good or evil, my lady?”
That made her chuckle. “Oh, good. I am a knight of sorts myself, sweet ser. A champion of light and life.”
“Yet you mean to kill a man tonight,” he said. “As you killed Maester Cressen.”
“Your maester poisoned himself. He meant to poison me, but I was protected by a greater power and he was not.”
“And Renly Baratheon? Who was it who killed him?”
Her head turned. Beneath the shadow of the cowl, her eyes burned like pale red candle flames. “Not I.”
“Liar.” Davos was certain now.
Melisandre laughed again. “You are lost in darkness and confusion, Ser Davos.”
“And a good thing.” Davos gestured at the distant lights flickering along the walls of Storm’s End. “Feel how cold the wind is? The guards will huddle close to those torches. A little warmth, a little light, they’re a comfort on a night like this. Yet that will blind them, so they will not see us pass.” I hope. “The god of darkness protects us now, my lady. Even you.”
The flames of her eyes seemed to burn a little brighter at that. “Speak not that name, ser. Lest you draw his black eye upon us. He protects no man, I promise you. He is the enemy of all that lives. It is the torches that hide us, you have said so yourself. Fire. The bright gift of the Lord of Light.”
(…)
Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. “Gods preserve us,” he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre shone.
Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child’s head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre’s straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough.
He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who’d cast it.
Davos II, A Clash of Kings.
1 year ago on May 16, 2017 at 09:04pm