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There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

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‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves A stately pleasure-dome decreed. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

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This view is therapeutic. - Author: LavenderStaticy

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one of the things that struck me, when reading wheel of time, was just how much the white tower is so clearly meant to be the encapsulation of the idea of an ivory tower

for the aes sedai there is only one way to live and to work with the power—their way. wilders, aiel, atha’an miere, (and to an extent as we get further on, the asha’man) are all ostracised and looked down upon because they work with the one power in a way that goes beyond the boundaries of accepted practices that the aes sedai have arbitrarily enforced. and these places stem some of the best minds and powers of the generation, but they’re seen as threats and insubordinate because they don’t bend over backward for the aes sedai. they’ve shot themselves in the foot by refusing to change, by refusing to try and make the world better. they spend their lives scheming, pulling the world from the shadows, instead of truly trying to fight the rising darkness.

this works hand in hand with the other thing I am so fascinated about when it comes to the aes sedai—they are no longer worthy of the respect they expect and demand of the world. they’re a bunch of bickering women who are full of strife and decision, are broken soundly in half and get try to pretend everything is fine, who look down upon a former amrylin seat for the simple fact she was stilled. they’re full of contradictions as they pretend at a glory they lost through being an ivory tower that was so terrified of change or alternate perspectives they just kinda dug their own graves

The Aes Sedai are fascinating yall

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spring in china by 云溪AN

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by johns_plant_adventures

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by emilie.hofferber

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The land whispers ancient stories

@peaklass

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by ryanresatka

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blue jacaranda blossom in 昆明kunming, yunnan province of china

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pomegranate tree in 怡园yiyuan, suzhou, jiangsu province of china by Rtkiycs

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Park Soo Yu