#Dragonfire Fallen Star

[jessequinones]

Writing Advice: Slow burn vs. dragging it out (relationship edition)

I’m currently reading Dragonfire: Fallen Star and I need to get this off my chest, it’s about the difference between a slow burn and dragging something out, namely in the way of creating a relationship.

In the first book, Blaze meets Risha and it’s obvious she’s the love interest and that’s fine. She doesn’t have much of a personality besides being moral support for Blaze but it’s whatever. At the end of the book, the author does something differently and doesn’t pair them together despite it being obvious.

That caught my attention, if it didn’t happen in the first book after the final battle and Risha almost died, maybe Blaze would get with someone else in book two? No ... he doesn't. It takes until the end of book two for both of them to admit they love each other and Blaze is confused because he never had a concept of “love” and didn’t realise he was in “love” or that Risha loved him. (I know asexuality is a thing however I can’t comment if Blaze is asexual or aromantic because I’m not either of those things. As far as I’m aware, Blaze isn’t.)

So let’s talk about a slow burn vs. dragging out a relationship.

A slow-burn love story is kind of the focus of the story. Most of the time you see them in either slice-of-life stories, romance, or even erotic storytelling, but the main focus of the story is primarily the relationship between two or more characters. You know it’s gonna happen, everyone around them knows it’s gonna happen, and the build-up of their relationships feels natural, and if written well, you’re waiting for that “I love you, let’s kiss as a couple” moment just like how everyone else in the story is waiting for it.

Now that’s not to say a slow-burn relationship is only found in those stories, as it’s a common trope with a lot of storytelling. Two characters are in love but don’t have time to do anything about it until the story is over where they can relax and admit their feelings for one another. (Insert nearly any story here).

The point is, if it’s obvious, and we know it’s gonna happen if it doesn’t happen at the end where we thought it would...then it becomes a love story which feels like it’s dragging on.

Case in point, Dragonfire book one and two. While I was caught off guard about book one’s ending where Blaze didn’t get with Risha, book two started off with the most obvious “I’m in love but don’t realise it” kind of writing there is and it doesn’t stop until near the end. This relationship was already established and written in book one, why does it have to carry over to the next book? Mind you these books are over 400 pages long, I basically, read an 800-page romance where they don’t get together until page 800. That’s not a slow burn, that’s dragging it out.

Slow burn vs. dragging it out comes down to how the reader feels about said relationship. I’ll use myself as the main example because I like slow burns. I giggle when I see them because I think it’s cute when two people are in love, don’t realise it, and they blush every time they see each other. I’m a sucker for romance so I’d like to see my slow burns every once in a while.

Slow burn for romance, slice of life, and even erotica are kind of the point of their stories. Two characters are in love, they spend a lot of time together and in the end, they get together. So I don’t need to explain much about them because it’s kind of the whole point you read them some of the time.

Slow Burns for nearly every other story is written in a way where two characters are in love, they don’t know it, but as the story progresses, they think about each other, maybe even flirt a little, and they sacrifice their lives for each other. (Typical romance in more adventure pack stories.) At the end of the final climax of the story (normally after a love interests nearly die) and the world is saved, they kiss at the end and everyone cheers. While the romance isn’t the main point of the story, it’s still a very obvious way to write one and a lot of readers expect something at the end after it was built up from the beginning. Even if the relationship isn’t written well, some readers might give it a pass if they know what’s gonna happen at the end.

Now what about a slow burn for multiple stories? At what point does it drag?

Slow burns for multiple stories can work, but you need to change the relationship a little. First of all, having the main character “not realise” they're in love isn’t a good way to avoid putting them together unless said character is aromantic or asexual. (Like I said, I’m not either of them and have no idea how to write a character who's like that, so if that’s what you’re going for I suggest asking other writers who are either of those things.)

The relationship needs to grow and others need to comment about it. The characters could be unsure if the other will like them or they could both be aware they like each other but have neither want to make it official because what if it causes their friendship to break? Just do something which indicates they’re trying, but have a good reason not to make it official. 

Sometimes you can make fake love triangles. (Fake love triangles are love triangles which are put in place to further the relationship between two characters). Fake love triangles normally don’t last long, but last just enough for the slow burn to do its magic. Which is mostly by making one of the love interests either jealous or sad because they “missed their moment” even though the character they're crushing on is very obviously not gonna stick with their current partner.

Real-life relationships don’t just happen overnight, sometimes they can take years so there’s nothing wrong if you want to write a slow-burn relationship, the problem comes from the audience's patience and this is something which will vary from person.

From my own experience and how I feel when reading these types of relationships. If it was obvious, that they were supposed to get together at the end of one book but didn’t, that could either surprise me as I might've felt I read the entire relationship wrong or get annoyed because we’re doing this entire song and dance all over again in book two.

While I can’t give an example for every time I felt like this while reading stories, I’ll try to explain why I felt like some relationships were dragging on because as I stated before, this ultimately comes down to audience patience.

Enough time has passed: Most of the time between books one and two, there’s a time jump. Book one of Dragonfire and book two have a four-season time jump (so most likely a year) during this entire year, neither Blaze nor Risha get together? What were they doing this entire time?

I don’t know about other readers but I’d like to imagine what characters do when the story is over and if there’s a seconded book with a time jump, I'd try to imagine what they were doing in said time jump. Both of these characters were crushing on each other for the entirety of book one and yet neither made a move during the gap? Why? It also doesn’t explain why they never tried to make a move on each other during the gap in book two as well.

If you want to create a slow burn for several stories and you know there’s gonna be a time jump in between some of the stories, you need to explain why your characters, who now have some time to relax, don’t get together. Sometimes it can be as simple as “we already tried and it didn’t work out”, it happens. Sometimes people need to try a relationship a few times before getting it right. If this is the case, it’s more believable that while they still like each other, they don’t want to try again because what if it doesn’t work out a second time? What if they get into a fight and ruin their friendship?

You can also have one of the characters already in another relationship with someone else. This is leaning more on the love triangle side of things instead of creating a fake one, but how this one works is that one of the characters took a bit too long to say “I love you” so, the other character moved on during the time jump and now the character which took a bit too long to say “I love you” is upset about their actions. The reason why I say this isn’t really a fake love triangle trope is because if this love triangle is established at the beginning of the second book, then it’s gonna play a more prominent role throughout the story.

Maybe you could create a Romeo and Juliet kind of slow burn where the main characters know they love each other but they can’t make it official because of reasons. While this is on the line of creating an established relationship, there’s a difference between them kissing in secret compared to kissing in public and it’s the public kiss the readers are waiting for. You can also do this same exact love story but have it where one of the characters keeps refusing to progress because if others find out, then a war will break out or something.

The point is, that you need to acknowledge why they haven’t gotten together instead of the “I didn’t know I was in love” trope.

Another reason why I feel a slow burn turns into a dragging-on love story is when there are no other options. I know we all hate love triangles but they do serve a purpose. If two characters love each other, and there’s no other character that ever gets brought up as a potential love triangle then I ask, why haven’t they just tied the knot if neither of them have any options?

It should’ve happened already: This one is an easy explanation. If a reader feels like the relationship should’ve already been confirmed and it’s not...that feels like the relationship is dragging on. This kind of feeling will vary from reader to reader so if this is what someone says, it’s best to ask them to clarify.

The writer put too much emphasis on the relationship: If you want a relationship to take place over several stories, or even just one, but you want it to be a slow burn, while not creating a romance, slice of life, etc. If you bring up the fact two characters are in love over and over, to the point it feels like the relationship is getting more attention than the actual story, readers might want those characters to tie the knot just so the story can move forward.

Every single one of these examples is based on a reader's feelings about the relationship you're creating so it changes for everyone and everyone will have a different spot in your story they can tell you where it felt like the relationship is dragging on. For me, it was in chapter two of book two, I already felt like it was dragging on as soon as I realised this was gonna be the same thing as in book one.

Beta readers are your friend and if you’re gonna have this come across in multiple stories, then make sure to find beta readers who’ve read each story and ask them how the relationship felt for them. If someone tells you it feels like it’s dragging a bit. You don’t have to change the relationship entirely, but make sure you get multiple opinions because each reader will view your relationship differently.

Despite love being a very common experience everyone has felt, it’s also one of the most difficult ones to write. Just make sure to get different opinions and see what the majority of your readers feel like.

[ofglories]

The sound of metal plates and slow footsteps will be the first signal of approach, followed by the dark shadow that will looms over Emrys and cover all light. The armor is black like the darkest of nights, the only color the bright cyan eyes seen through the occularium. Vortigern watches, doesn't say a single word, and then strips himself from his helmet before the other for the first time. Black tufts brush his shoulders and frame a sun-kissed face which bears what can only be described as utter disappointment. His sabaton presses against the side of Emrys's face, as if to get a better look at him. A gauntleted finger idly brushes the end of one of the arrows.

"Was that it, boy?"

In the moment before his mind fully registers just what it is that has blocked the cloudy sky from sight, he thought that he had died there on that lonely battlefield. And then, slowly, Ambrosius blinked up at the man who now stood over him. The pitch black armor was unmistakable, as was those bright eyes shining through the helmet. It was infuriating to not be able to stand, to not be able to clash blades with the man now.

Archers were the bane of his existence, getting the better of him like this.

The soldier blinked, taking in the surprisingly normal face of Vortigern, the king he had been battling for easily months now. It was enough to briefly distract him from the sabaton pressing against his cheek, turning his head more upwards. Briefly. The touch to one of the arrows decorating his torso however made him hiss.

"Vade in foveam putrescet magna bestia muta!" Ambrosius snarled, baring his teeth as best as he was able with the pain. "I'm not finished, not yet. I refuse... I refuse to give in here and let you win by default."

[ennaku-sirri-da]

Jabberwock with eyes of flame, frabjous day, calloh, callay!

Plain text: Jabberwock with eyes of flame, frabjous day, calloh, callay!

[ ID: Traditional fanart colored digitally, of Putunia Mollar and Dr.Habit from the game Smile For Me.

Dr. Habit here is drawn as a three-headed dragon, his heads corresponding to his regular form, Puppet Habit or Lil Habby, and the Shadow form in the middle. His snouts are colored in orange. His yellow wings are feathered at the start, giving way to leathery parts. His hair is present, riding down his necks and as a big bushy bunch at the tail. All three heads wear hats as well.

The regular Habit head has a blue tongue, lighter orange eyes and is missing some jagged teeth. The Shadow Habit head has a dark red tongue, red eyes and black pointy teeth. The Puppet Habit head has a red tongue, multiple pairs of teeth, and deeper orange eyes.

Putunia is drawn as a knight, her helmet like her red fighter mask in the game. Her dark cloak is dotted with stars and clasped at center by a blue crescent. Her armor is blueish grey. Her sword has a gold hilt while her shield has a crescent insignia.

She faces off against the three headed dragon, with a grin and her dark cloak flowing behind her, her sword held up and giving off sparks, and her shield held against her for protection from the flames. The dragon stands atop his tower, the roof of Habits tower, while Putunia stands on the balcony extending from it. The dragon's heads snap and snarl at her, wings outstretched. Night has fallen and yellow stars are spattered across the sky. Bright fires spark and rage across the entire battle. End ID]

__

Heyyy everyone! I'll try to regularly post again!!!

This was inspired by the scene in Sleeping Beauty

[ GIF description: From Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Prince Phillip stands cornered on a cliff edge, and throws his sword into the heart of the dragon, that the witch Maleficent has turned into. Dragonfire rages around the scene. End description]

Habit is soooo dragon coded in my heart.... eyes of flame, lives in a tower, big and strong MOTHERFUCKERRR

[theribbajack]

The Daedra walked in a place outside worlds, not in Nirn, nor Oblivion, nor even the Void. Handsomely dressed, his hair was as red as dragonfire, his eyes twin golden stars, windows into the entity that longed for the slightest excuse to shred the form of flesh which clothed him. Yet he walked with grace, bending not a blade of grass where he trod. 

“Well, well,” he said, and his voice was as if the sun turned and traveled backward. “It seems old Mora loses the bet. More the fool he, then. All his thralls must come to me in time.” - The Fallen, chapter 11

Another somewhat messy take on Daggerfall!Sheo that started as a warm-up and got out of hand haha. I wonder if perhaps red is his natural hair color, and it only turns white when the Greymarch approaches?

[ilynpilled]

Aerys & Cersei

I have seen some posts recently that want to paint Dany as the Aerys parallel in the story, as opposed to Cersei, and I want to pick that apart, and argue why it is detrimental to the respective stories of multiple characters, as well as pretty thematically incoherent.

Putting this quote by George in here as a given, as it will be relevant to the content in here:

"Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books."

Thematically, Dany becoming an Aerys parallel is awful because of the bio essentialist undertones it has. I’ll put a link to the post that goes more in depth into this at the end of this. This is going to be rather long.

People use this argument for the Dany parallel for some reason: later, wildfire in many ways also functions as the Targs’ attempt to recreate dragons (Aerys is the most glaring example). To recreate lost magic, lost power. There are many historical stories of this destroying some of them. When you have a family be the head of a violent construct, like feudalistic hierarchies, it should not shock anyone how power can get corrupted. That is how I always viewed wildfire: the corrupted version of fire. It is an attempt to recreate power. Dany already has dragonfire, she literally brought them back into the world, she already has “power”, and she is learning to wield it (dragons, like power, can be wielded in different ways: plus they are living beings, I think this is key when comparing them with wildfire and its symbolic implications) Cersei’s story foils this in so many ways. Fire already has a rich duality in this series: life vs death, emancipation vs corruption, light vs destruction etc. Now let me get into the role fire & light plays in Cersei’s story:

She is associated with fire and passion in the text. She has a hunger for many things, power, love, respect and so on. She seems to mirror wildfire (directly as per Jaime’s description: “She had been a pretty girl, in truth; dimpled and delicate, with long auburn hair. Timid, though. Prone to tongue-tied silences and fits of giggles, with none of Cersei's fire.” , “Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. [….] her fury had been fearful to behold. She does not lack for wits, but she has no judgment, and no patience.”) She feels that that fire, that power, is absent in her life, leaving her in darkness and turning her ice cold.

By the time they left Maegor's Holdfast, the sky had turned a deep cobalt blue, though the stars still shone. All but one, Cersei thought. The bright star of the west has fallen, and the nights will be darker now. She paused upon the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat, gazing down at the spikes below. They would not dare lie to me about such a thing. "Who found him?"' "One of his guards," said Ser Osmund. "Lum. He felt a call of nature, and found his lordship in the privy." No, that cannot be. That is not the way a lion dies. The queen felt strangely calm. She remembered the first time she had lost a tooth, when she was just a little girl. It hadn't hurt, but the hole in her mouth felt so odd she could not stop touching it with her tongue. Now there is a hole in the world where Father stood, and holes want filling.

Tywin is both a symbol and a person that governs so much of Cersei and her relationship with the world. He owned her, a misogynistic traditionalist that sold her and moved her like a chess piece, with no regard to how it would affect her. He did not allow her individualization solely because of her gender. She even thinks he is in hell in her first AFfC chapter, likely for a multitude of reasons. Yet, Cersei aims to emulate his example. She seeks to fill the hole that he left. She wants to prove to him that she is worthy, even in his death. More so than his sons. His absence means darkness to her, because he and his conditioning is all that she knows. She thinks this is the key to recreating that absent fire. This also juxtaposes Jaime’s thoughts when he looks up the same stars. He associates Tywin with death and a feast for crows. He acknowledges that the sun has set, but he does not connect that light to Tywin, and he also thinks about the faint light of distant stars instead. They also come to drastically different conclusions about the worth of a crown. Cersei is repeatedly associated with death, and I do not think it is just about her own doom, but the feast for crows that she will bring about.

The queen could feel the heat of those green flames. The pyromancers said that only three things burned hotter than their sub-stance: dragonflame, the fires beneath the earth, and the summer sun. Some of the ladies gasped when the first flames appeared in the windows, licking up the outer walls like long green tongues. Others cheered, and made toasts. It is beautiful, she thought, as beautiful as Joffrey, when they laid him in my arms. No man had ever made her feel as good as she had felt when he took her nipple in his mouth to nurse. Tommen stared wide-eyed at the fires, as fascinated as he was frightened, until Margaery whispered something in his ear that made him laugh. Some of the knights began to make wagers on how long it would be before the tower collapsed. Lord Hallyne stood humming to himself and rocking on his heels. Cersei thought of all the King's Hands that she had known through the years: Owen Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelsted, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom.

Mind you this seed was already planted in ASoS:

Jaime curled up beneath his cloak, hoping to dream of Cersei. But when he closed his eyes, it was Aerys Targaryen he saw, pacing alone in his throne room.

Then, this is as clear cut of an Aerys parallel as it can get. People use Jaime’s description of Aerys and his relationship with fire, and try to project that onto Dany:

“Aerys would have bathed in it if he'd dared. The Targaryens were all mad for fire.”

The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him…. that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash. (Beyond obvious how well this fits with Cersei’s current and pending situation like lets be serious) :

I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the Rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back.

My crown, the queen thought. They took the other crown away from me, and now they are stealing this one as well.

I should not have done this. I was their queen, but now they've seen, they've seen, they've seen. I should never have let them see. Gowned and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little maiden daughters. What have I done?

“He has sworn that he will not speak until all of His Grace's enemies are dead and evil has been driven from the realm.”

Yes, thought Cersei Lannister. Oh, yes.

People take the Targaryen aspect at face value, because they love to pick and choose at what times they want him to be an entirely reliable narrator. Again, Aerys never had dragons, he wanted to recreate them. It is not hard to actually navigate Jaime’s bias here as a result of his trauma, especially considering what Jaime himself thinks of Rhaegar (Rhaegar is not a Targ mad with fire in his mind but the ”good king that never was” lol) and the brutal death of his children at the hands of his family. (Aerys trauma affecting judgement regarding bloodlines was present when he almost pulled a #targrestoration for the trolling after they found him and asked him to name a king and he almost named a Targ as king and his father as hand bc it would make Robert #mad and thats funny until he got Aerys PTSD. He fears the ghost of Aerys returning more than anything else. It is a priority over his family’s interests, even back then). Again, the text is not actually bio essentialist, Jaime just has a very intense and dark relationship with Aerys and immense trauma that affects his logic. Not to mention, again, all that Aerys and some other Targs craved, Dany already achieved naturally. I just find it very funny how some of you people pick and choose when you want this man to be a reliable narrator depending on your agenda. Trust it is actually not that hard to figure it out when he is bullshitting in his thoughts or his words. Just look for contradictory actions or words, or whether his trauma and dissociative tendencies are relevant. Also why would you agree with the logic of “inherently evil and mad bloodline” said by the guy who is currently also convinced that he and his twin are one soul in two bodies who are tied together by fate?

Then, Jaime himself makes an actually reliable connection between Aerys and Cersei. No bloodline bullshit here. Cersei is literally his twin.

"That would be an even greater folly than burning the Tower of the Hand. So long as Tommen sits the Iron Throne, the realm sees him as the true king. Hide him under the Rock and he becomes just another claimant to the throne, no different than Stannis.”

"I am aware of that," the queen said sharply. "I said that I wanted to move the court to Lannisport, not that I would. Were you always this slow, or did losing a hand make you stupid?"

Jaime ignored that. "If these flames spread beyond the tower, you may end up burning down the castle whether you mean to or not. Wildfire is treacherous.'

"Lord Hallyne has assured me that his pyromancers can control the fire. The Guild of Alchemists had been brewing fresh wildfire for a fortnight. "Let all of King's Landing see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies."

"Now you sound like Aerys."

Her nostrils flared. “Guard your tongue, ser"

"I love you too, sweet sister."

How could I ever have loved that wretched creature? she wondered after he had gone. He was your twin, your shadow, your other half, another voice whispered. Once, perhaps, she thought. No longer. He has become a stranger to me. (Interesting that Jaime repeatedly associates Cersei with death directly, be it subconscious or conscious, and Cersei makes an accidental connection but not a deliberate one)

Other than the obvious fascination with wildfire, Cersei also aims to hurt him here with Kettleblack, because she is uncomfortable with losing her tool, and also because she is losing a source of warmth/love:

Cersei beckoned to Jaime. "Lord Commander, escort His Grace and his little queen to their pillows, if you would.

"As you command. And you as well?"

"No need." Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. “The flames are so pretty. I want to watch them for a while.”

Jaime hesitated. “You should not stay alone.”

"I will not be alone. Ser Osmund can remain with me and keep me safe. Your Sworn Brother"

"If it please Your Grace,” said Kettleblack.

“It does.” Cersei slid her arm through his, and side by side they watched the fire rage.

We have access to Jaime’s thoughts:

Jaime knew the look in his sister's eyes. He had seen it before, most recently on the night of Tommen's wedding, when she burned the Tower of the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to look upon. She'd stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said. The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him.

Jaime is aware and is bitter about that, but he hones in on a completely different thing. The bitterness over the cheating takes a backseat to him noticing the ghost of Aerys being present in Cersei. Then, this parallel keeps going. Right after Jaime makes a direct parallel between Aerys and Cersei, as well as associating her with death and corpses again, his thoughts drift to Aerys and his skewed relationship with wildfire & sex. Fire is passion, yes, sexual ardor, but again, wildfire is a corrupted version of fire.

whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. "You're hurting me,” they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. "You're hurting me." In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted's screaming. "We are sworn to protect her as well," Jaime had finally been driven to say. "We are," Darry allowed, "but not from him." Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

"And this?" Cersei pinched the nipple now, pulling on it hard, twisting it between her fingers.The Myrish woman gave a gasp of pain.

"You're hurting me."

"It's just the wine. I had a flagon with my supper, and another with the widow Stokeworth. I had to drink to keep her calm." She twisted Taena's other nipple too, pulling until the other woman gasped. "I am the queen I mean to claim my rights.”

"Do what you will.” Taena's hair was as black as Robert's, even down between her legs, and when Cersei touched her there she found her hair all sopping wet, where Robert's had been coarse and dry.

"Please,” the Myrish woman said, "go on, my queen. Do as you will with me. I'm yours.” But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her. There was no pleasure in it, not for her.

She gasped some words in a foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed. She sounds as if she is being gored, the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her fingers were a bore's tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat. It was still no good. It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime.

Cersei seeks to achieve catharsis. She is exploring her own trauma. She wants to derive catharsis from emulating power. From emulating violent men, emulating Robert. But she experiences no pleasure. She experiences no catharsis. This is not enough. This is not what she is looking for. All she has is the fire.

Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

This is what Cersei, like Aerys, will want to achieve in a metaphorical and in some ways literal sense. But with wildfire. It won’t work obviously, but it is all that she has.

Now lets talk about Cersei and swords.

Jaime, above most else, functioned as her sword. He was an extension of her, a weapon she desperately needed in order to punish others, and simultaneously protect herself. It was power. She immediately takes note of it when physical and internal change in Jaime is present:

"He'll have Casterly Rock, isn't that enough? Let Father sit the throne. All I want is you." He made to touch her cheek. Old habits die hard, and it was his right arm he lifted. Cersei recoiled from his stump.

"Don't ... don't talk like this. You're scaring me, Jaime. Don't be stupid. One wrong word and you'll cost us everything. What did they do to you?"

"They cut off my hand."

"No, it's more, you're changed." She backed off a step.

+

Jaime hugged her, his good hand pressing against the small of her back. He smelled of ash, but the morning sun was in his hair, giving it a golden glow. She wanted to draw his face to hers for a kiss. Later, she told herself, later he will come to me, for comfort.

"We are his heirs, Jaime," she whispered. "It will be up to us to finish his work. You must take Father's place as Hand. You see that now, surely. Tommen will need you.”

He pushed away from her and raised his arm, forcing his stump into her face.

"A Hand without a hand? A bad jape, sister. Don't ask me to rule.”

+

"Your turn," she told him afterward. "Pull his mane, I dare you." He never did. I should have had the sword, not him. (Interesting symbolism as to which one of them is opposed to the lions and which one is not)

+

If Jaime had not lost his hand. That road led nowhere, though. Jaime's sword hand was gone, and so was he

Jaime may yet come. She pictured him riding through the morning mists, his golden armor bright in the light of the rising sun.

It should be Jaime beside me. He would draw his golden sword and slash a path right through the mob, carving the eyes out of the head of every man who dared to look at her.

Ofc, who she used the weapon against were usually victims, but that is a big part of Cersei as a character, and the whole commentary about victims & perpetrators. You can have an irredeemable and evil character that the patriarchy still suppresses and affects the psychology of immensely, rendering her a bigger monster. The commentary on the destructive capacity of static social constructs is not lost as a result. A character can turn into the devil of the story due to a world that ceaselessly strips her of her humanity, as well as as a result of the choices she actively makes. Cersei has shown to be capable of cruelty even before her trauma (how she treated Tyrion, her extreme narcissism, throwing her best friend down a well), but this does not change anything. Being a perpetrator does not negate her victimhood, and vice versa. It is also her stubbornness and power hunger that leave her to her ruin in a world that does not allow her the ‘freedom’ or ‘power’ that she desperately desires. It becomes the worst combination of nature and nurturer. Her sword is gone for good. The motif of “sunlight” is once again present. It turns his hair/armor gold. She craves the golden Jaime in golden armor, the Jaime from AGoT. But we know Jaime’s color symbolism is heading in a very different direction:

Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to black.

She did as he bid her. "The white cloak . . ." ". . . is new, but I'm sure I'll soil it soon enough." “That wasn't . . . I was about to say that it becomes you”

When he was done, more than three-quarters of his page still remained to be filled between the gold lion on the crimson shield on top and the blank white shield at the bottom.

“Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold."

(Again, gold is heavy negative symbolism for Jaime, another indication that Goldenhand the Just is an obvious dead end, as I have discussed at length atp. It is an attempt to recreate his phantom and cover it up with a golden lie.)

Then, finally, the conclusion for Cersei during her rebirth:

A shadow fell across them both, blotting out the sun. The queen felt cold steel slide beneath her, a pair of great armored arms lifting her off the ground lifting her up into the air as easily as she had lifted Joffrey when he was still a babe.

This is the reason the sun gets blotted out at the end. I think that is a final statement on how he will never be her sword again. So now she needs a new sword. She has Robert Strong, and she has wildfire. Light & sun is repeatedly absent, and she lands in the cold darkness over and over again. She has associations with ice and wildfire. Unlike Jaime, who is often reborn in light & warmth (1. first POV: “sent them toward the pale pink dawn. After so long in darkness, the world was so sweet that Jaime Lannister felt dizzy. I am alive, and drunk on sunlight.” In contrast with Cersei’s first POV: her awakening in her dark chamber after a dream turned nightmare. 2. when the arakh kills his old self: “sunlight ran silver along the edge of the arakh”, 3. the steaming bath. Robert Strong also contrasts Brienne. Interesting that he lifts Cersei up into the air, while Brienne catches Jaime before he could fall. Robert Strong is “cold steel”, while Brienne’s touch is “warm” (noted twice by Jaime). “The cell began to darken. It was growing cold as well. Cersei began to shiver. How can they leave me like this, without so much as a fire? I am their queen.” Cersei on the other hand keeps being put or reborn in darkness, I assume this symbolically has meaning and is no coincidence. Plus, while Jaime chooses to cut his own hair, Cersei is forcefully stripped from it. What is also interesting is what the both of them have in the dark (Jaime’s weirwood dream) are the flames (for Jaime the flaming sword, for Cersei the torch, and later the wildfire).

Again, people want Jaime to be an unreliable narrator here, clouded by bitterness and hatred or something, but I really doubt that is the case. Again, the cheating takes a backseat, and that whole thing is more complicated anyways: it is primarily a catalyst that reveals to him how broken the illusion he created for himself about the relationship is at its very foundation. The whole idea of her love, which is so significant for him, is questioned. There are so many factors that play into their relationship falling apart (they both change, the hand loss, Jaime’s rejection of being Tywin’s heir, his desire to give up power and choose Cersei, while Cersei would never give up power for Jaime, him not understanding the nuances of that as Cersei is inherently more powerless bc of her status and she craves it desperately + differences in nature and experiences. + Cersei asking him to kill Tyrion. Again, they are fundamentally different. This is also a partial reason as to why Jaime rejected her advances post sept scene imo, even if he keeps making inconsistent excuses (location, the dead KG or his father, vows, judgement of the gods [he never really cared about this before: he is a reddit atheist, also did not stop him at the sept]). Some of this is before the cheating reveal.) Jaime does not harm her even if she repeatedly hits him, emasculates him, insults him (he mentioned that he already turned her blows to kisses before) etc. but there is violent anger within him about the cheating. I think this is because that is the one thing that truly creates a major hole in his self-conjured narrative about the relationship (we are one soul in two bodies, destined lovers), as well as something that recontextualizes all the awful things he had actively done to sustain it. Other than all that, let me talk about Jaime and eyes:

Jaime watched her eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought, and calm. He knew how to read a man's eyes.

Bolton's silence was a hundred times more threatening than Vargo Hoat's slobbering malevolence. Pale as morning mist, his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes. : Roose Bolton's eyes were paler than stone, darker than milk

He remembered Eddard Stark, riding the length of Aerys's throne room wrapped in silence. Only his eyes had spoken; a lord's eyes, cold and grey and full of judgment.

The clasp that pinned it to her breast was wrought in the shape of a wolf's head with slitted opal eyes. The girl's long brown hair blew wild in the wind. She had a pretty face, he thought, but her eyes were sad and wary. (makes his inaction [link] all the more terrible, his conscience is screaming at him)

"Blue is a good color on you, my lady," Jaime observed. "It goes well with your eyes." She does have astonishing eyes.

The queen's eyes were green ice. "You had best go, ser."

He remembered how Rossart's eyes would shine (another Cersei parallel) when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed.

With his grim face and deep-sunk hollow eyes, Ser Ilyn might have passed for death himself . . . as he had, for years.

Though his pox-scarred face was grim and his eyes as cold as ice on a winter lake, Jaime sensed that he was glad he'd come.

Sorry, but I am gonna trust what Jaime sees in her eyes at Tommen’s Wedding. His judgement tends to be very accurate. Eyes are the windows to the soul after all.

Every idea that I have discussed at length here is also present in Jaime’s dreams.

Down a twisting passageway he went, narrow steps carved from the living rock, down and down. I must go up, he told himself. Up, not down. Why am I going down? Below the earth his doom awaited, he knew with the certainty of dream; something dark and terrible lurked there, something that wanted him.

The steps ended abruptly on echoing darkness. Jaime had the sense of vast space before him. He jerked to a halt, teetering on the edge of nothingness. A spearpoint jabbed at the small of the back, shoving him into the abyss. He shouted, but the fall was short. He landed on his hands and knees, upon soft sand and shallow water. There were watery caverns deep below Casterly Rock, but this one was strange to him. "What place is this?"

"Your place." The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of all the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who'd lived at the dawn of days. But most of all it was his father's voice, and beside Lord Tywin stood his sister, pale and beautiful, a torch burning in her hand. Joffrey was there as well, the son they'd made together, and behind them a dozen more dark shapes with golden hair.

"Sister, why has Father brought us here?"

"Us? This is your place, Brother. This is your darkness." Her torch was the only light in the cavern. Her torch was the only light in the world. She turned to go.

"Stay with me," Jaime pleaded. "Don't leave me here alone." But they were leaving. "Don't leave me in the dark!" Something terrible lived down here. "Give me a sword, at least."

“I gave you a sword," Lord Tywin said.

It was at his feet. Jaime groped under the water until his hand closed upon the hilt. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have a sword. As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand's breath from the hilt.

—- Brienne shows up naked. Jaime cuts her chains. Gifts her a sword. etc.

Brienne's sword took flame as well, burning silvery blue. The darkness retreated a little more.

"The flames will burn so long as you live," he heard Cersei call. "When they die, so must you."

"Sister!" he shouted. "Stay with me. Stay!" There was no reply but the soft sound of retreating footsteps.

— Jaime and Brienne are left to face ghosts, lot of LN imagery and all that. Jaime’s sword’s fire goes out, Brienne’s still burns, he jerks awake before the ghosts rush him with his heart beating. Another moonlight motif happens after he wakes up on a “white stump” and he goes back for Brienne and saves her from the bear etc whatever no longer relevant to Cersei’s story imo

The Lannister legacy is associated with doom in Jaime’s subconscious. Cersei leaves with fire to join the Lannisters, specifically her son and father, and the imagery of death is so prevalent again.

This then mirrors Jaime’s other main dream, where his subconscious mind is communicating with him, right before he burns her letter. Again, overwhelming fire imagery. And it is fire that is destroying her. Like the letter, she is left to burn. First he mistakes his mother for Cersei, and then her leaving him parallels Cersei leaving in the fever dream. His mom, or his subconscious, also presents him with a key reality check:

One. One hand, clasped tight around the sword hilt. Only one. "In my dreams I always have two hands." He raised his right arm and stared uncomprehending at the ugliness of his stump.

"We all dream of things we cannot have. Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight, that his daughter would be a queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them."

This is in direct conversation with his last dream (I assume it is deconstructing it. Idk, Jaime, it is almost like Goldenhand the Just is not a real possibility): “Last night he dreamed he'd found her fucking Moon Boy. He'd killed the fool and smashed his sister's teeth to splinters with his golden hand, just as Gregor Clegane had done to poor Pia (we know what he thinks of Gregor, we know this is not good in his mind or ours, it is almost like his subconscious is telling him something). In his dreams Jaime always had two hands; one was made of gold, but it worked just like the other.”

"I am a knight," he told her, "and Cersei is a queen."

A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman raised her hood again and turned her back on him. Jaime called after her, but already she was moving away, her skirt whispering lullabies as it brushed across the floor. Don't leave me, he wanted to call, but of course she'd left them long ago.

Both of their endeavors seem to be dead ends. Cersei is not gonna be the Queen that she always craved to be, despite having the title. Jaime is not and is not going to be the glorious knight, Goldenhand the Just, as he should conclude based on the Riverrun fiasco (this is also why I think Jaime’s very emphasized white/silver/grey replacing gold & crimson color symbolism is not about the KG, it is either something more abstract or it is about the Starks: “White is for the Starks. I’ll drink red like a good Lannister”, ntm how tied Arya is to JB through locations/brotherhood/stoneheart despite their desperate search for Sansa (pointless, she is at the Vale), and horses & wolves, the weirwood, the oath in general, and the fact that WW is half of Ice.) That is his attempt to recreate a fictive ideal that the boy he used to be dreamed of. That is not what true knighthood is about though. It was never about golden glory. These are golden lies. He knows too deep down. He has one hand. He has to look at the ugliness of the stump. It feels like Jaime realizes this, on a subconscious level certainly, and will pivot (especially after confronting what is essentially the embodiment of the worst product of the Lannister regime: a monster created by its sins, the cycle of violence itself, as well Jaime’s specific part in it: Stoneheart) at least I hope so, because that is how his arc would be functional, but Cersei remains steadfast. Also, Cersei remaining passive would feel like her character and the set up did not go anywhere. Whatever she will do with wildfire will be a grand act of agency, and her combatting the state she is in, it is gonna be a very corrupted and poetic act of destruction. She is essentially gonna set herself and the world on fire in order to battle the cold (her enemies, the people that hurt her, witnesses, and the innocents that are a victim to this whole cycle). That is what I would like to see. Jaime’s last AFfC chapter is also supposed to be a point of no return in some form. The idea of “opening the shutters”, winter, is so emphasized. The main reason certain retreading happens in ADwD that some people are obsessed with overanalyzing or misrepresenting (especially bc they need it desperately to justify “Jaime is drawn back to CR of all places to Cersei for no good reason other than he is a codependent addict” so they can get the wildfire + Cersei + KL out of the equation so Dany or whatever can be the Aerys parallel/mad evil kaboom boom person while there still being some lackluster follow through for all of Cersei’s set ups like valonqar etc) is because George’s editor told him to do some retreading with him since he took so long between books that the readers needed a reminder about where these characters were left:

so this entire passage had to be added in to cover these bases. When I read the Feast/Dance combined book it made me laugh how much this part was a “previously on Jaime Lannister.”

But again, he makes a clear choice, motivated by a concoction of things: he goes with Brienne, not back to his King, or back to Cersei. I think he is not ready to face Cersei yet and fears what he would do. I think so many dichotomies were being emphasized in this chapter: Tywin’s dogma, its results, the glory of pursuing the brotherhood, and how it all conflicts with Jaime’s arc in the subtext. I do not doubt he will land back there again, yes, George said they are effectively estranged, the romantic relationship is over, but that does not necessarily mean they will not meet again, nor that they will not hold any relevance in each other’s stories anymore. (Even if valonqar will not be literal, again, he has one hand, and he came to this conclusion in his dreams too in the end, and this fact very much comes in the way of the logistics of “the valonqar will wrap his hands”, if not only literally, certainly symbolically: even if it is the gold chain part two (was one not more than enough George???), I feel like Jaime would struggle with doing it with even that considering his hand situation.) Personally, I would prefer it if that part of the prophecy is subverted and it ends up not being an ex (or any other man for that matter) overpowering and murdering her. George had enough misses when it concerns some misogynistic writing in her storyline, it is 2023 now, so her death not being in anyway “gratifying” for misogynists (see aspects of the framing of Lysa’s death) would be my preference. I would love her death to be on her own terms. I made a parallel about her and Hedda Gabler before, and maybe something of that sort would be the best case scenario. She would rather take herself out in a blaze of glory than let the men (any valonqar, be it Tyrion, Jaime, Aegon etc) do it. That would be tragic as well as in some very dark way her reclaiming agency from fate itself. But honestly I doubt that is the direction George will go. Jaime will probably kill her, and it will be an incredibly grey act. Do not want that to be presented as straightforwardly heroic. I think it will be motivated by a lot of emotion and not just duty. Do not know how this entire situation will go down exactly. Also, really specific detail I noticed regarding prophecy wording, might not be deliberate:

“And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”

Sometimes he even wept, until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him.

Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away.

And then there was no stopping the tears. They burned down the queen's cheeks like acid.

To my knowledge, these three (+ Cat’s tears burning like vinegar) are the only characters with this specific phrasing present. Interesting anyway.

Also, I am wondering how much Cers will even trust Jaime atp. The sun is blotted out, that has to represent disillusionment, no? Ronnet Connington is also back at KL, we all know what Jaime did to that man when it concerned Brienne, and Cersei’s “he would never abandon me for such a creature. My letter must not have reached him” might entirely fall apart even more if he happens to tell her. Nonetheless, Widow’s Wail is still very much at the Red Keep, and that will have to land in Jaime’s hand(s). Also to further address the theory that the twins will be away from the wildfire and die together at CR since I mentioned it, I do not think the twins should go to The Rock. It is a place that Jaime repeatedly rejected, and Cersei is so closely tied to KL, the throne, and her kids are destined to die because of their crowns. Kevan wanted to return Cersei to The Rock, and what happened to him lol. “So long as Tommen sits the Iron Throne, the realm sees him as the true king. Hide him under the Rock and he becomes just another claimant to the throne, no different than Stannis.” “I am aware of that” the Queen said sharply.

I don’t know guys, doubt Cersei will want to hide under the Rock after what happened. Like you are telling me that Cersei, the one that reached into the lion’s cage, the human embodiment of wildfire, will passively accept all this? “That is not the way a lion dies.” So unless it is like a huge irony moment, which I would honestly like less, I do not think I see it or would like it happening. Also, Jaime is presented with the opportunity to die with Cers twice atp, once at the end of AFfC when the letter comes, and then at ADwD he is on his way back there. He ends up not taking it. In ASoS, when Brienne talks him out of passive suicide under the graceful crescent, he makes “Cersei needs me, I cannot die we need to die together”, “Tyrion who loves me for a lie needs me”, and “revenge against Hoat and co” his purpose to keep living. Notice how literally none of these things come to be. He does not even actively pursue the Hoat gang, revenge “lost its savor” once he sees the brutality that happened to Hoat, Tyrion no longer loves him for a lie and he believes he does not love him at all, and look at what is up with Cersei. “Her need is real enough”, + his bitterness about the cheating is still present in the chapter, and yet he does not end up pursuing any of that and chooses the oath to Cat (he abandons his position alone with Brienne, not exactly the safest thing). Like in his dream, he has his own flame right now, Cersei leaves with her torch and is no longer “the only light in the world” like it used to be as a result of their codependent relationship. The essentialist roots of that were completely deconstructed for both parties, Jaime especially (and it is touched upon again in ADwD w Hildy). So I don’t know why and how he would go to CR to Cersei atp tbh. Something will have to draw him to KL imo. Jaime’s dream is not about CR literally either, one it mirrors Brienne’s dreams and she pictures a different location (ntm they are together in Jaime’s whole dream thing anyway, what the fuck would Brienne be doing over there), two he repeatedly thinks and realizes how there is no such place beneath The Rock by the end. The original CR connection is more metaphorical than anything in my opinion. It is Tyrion that is tied to that place in a plethora of ways. It is his character that it is extremely relevant to. Whatever he will end up doing there will serve just as well with the idea of the destruction of Tywin’s legacy. I think the other two siblings will destroy Tywin’s legacy in different ways.

Finally, here is why it being Dany is thematically pretty dysfunctional imo: link

And even if, after all that, you guys still believe there to be another Aerys parallel in the narrative: This is already in the text. Is Cersei’s role just to foreshadow another woman��s path? You want this same narrative to happen again but with a teenage girl? I sure love that guys great message about women and power.

[hamsterclaw]

Namjoon Masterlist

All of my writing contains smut and is 🔞. I hope you enjoy reading these Namjoon stories as much as I love writing about our fave big buff clumsy cerebral Joon.

Nuts idol!Namjoon x reader

Your ex-boyfriend’s new song reels you back in.

Open Chest surgeon! Namjoon x doctor! reader

You and Namjoon lost touch after medical school. You aren't expecting to see him again, until he turns up for a fellowship at your hospital.

Americano hardware store owner! Namjoon x cafe owner! reader

You've just opened your own cafe in a small suburban town. Namjoon owns the hardware store next door. He's hot, he's handy and suddenly you are in way over your head. Also read: Heat for Namjoon's POV.

Fallen angel! Namjoon x fashion editor! reader

You meet a man claiming to be an angel, and he turns your life upside down.

Fleeced farmer! Joon x lavender farmer! reader, ft farmer! JK

You're determined to achieve your grandparents' last wishes, which means returning to the farm where you spent many summers as a child. The boys next door have grown up, and Namjoon in particular is proving to be very distracting. Featuring Jungkook.

Run police detective! Namjoon x reader. Part of the Rage AU.

Namjoon's not sure why he noticed you, but now that he has, he wants to know more.

Inferno and Epilogue officer! Namjoon x diver! reader

Namjoon and you sign up as officers of Project Inferno, a global endeavour to save Earth from collapse. It's a high-risk operation, and no one knows the risk better than Yoongi, one of the few men to make it back from the trench.

Reprieve police detective! Namjoon x reader

You're the newest recruit to Namjoon's investigative team. Unbeknownst to everyone else, you've met before, which is exactly why he doesn't trust you.

Kyoto bookstore owner! Namjoon x reader, dystopian future

It's the year 3021. Namjoon and you have been in each other's orbit for years. You don't want his guilt to be the reason you stay together, but he's getting harder and harder to resist.

Sake rap star! Namjoon x sake brewer! reader ft bar owner Hoseok and businessman Yoongi, polyamory

Yoongi has a business proposition for you. You think working with him is a good decision for your business, but not necessarily your heart. Also read: Daiginjo, a follow up story to Sake.

Spread ex-military! Namjoon x doctor! reader ft doctor! Hoseok

Your hospital is under siege in the middle of a pandemic. Featuring Hoseok.

Freak on a bike runner! Namjoon x reader

He doesn't know what he's doing, this big dumb guy. Also read Breakfast, when it turns out your big dumb goon can make eggs. And dumbblonde, when he learns to drive but is only marginally better at staying alive. Also hookup, where he can drive but not quite park.

Change pt.2

Namjoon thinks he's over you, until he sees you.

Heartbeat doctors! Namjoon x reader

Your colleague Namjoon is infuriating. He’s intelligent, but he’s also smug, irritating and cold. You hate him until you realise you don’t.

Dragonfire dragon rider! Namjoon x reader

Lord Namjoon commands the dragon riders of Mount Halji. He's authoritative, well-respected, a fearsome warrior on the battlefield. So why aren't you afraid of him, damnit?

Love - a series exes Namjoon x reader

Namjoon is your ex-husband, the man who committed even though he didn't really want to. So why is he still hanging around now that you're over?

Night, London idol Namjoon x reader

You steal moments together when Namjoon's in town.

©hamsterclaw 2021 - 2024

[khaoticvex]

DRAGONFIRE TRILOGY

Here's a huge project I've been a part of this past year! I was given the incredible opportunity of illustrating the covers for an original trilogy called Dragonfire

This series is such a fun fantasy adventure! I am currently halfway through book 1 (having some spoilers due to doing these covers) and I definitely recommend picking up a copy of your own to support the author!

You can order these books in kindle or paperback here: LINK

[anotherknifeinmyhands]

mothers & daughter & things have to be better

dragonfire // coraline //@sunforgrace // @ijaazat // @siilentiary // wildwood by junot díaz

ID under cut

[ID: a variety of quotes

The first is a quote from ace in doctor who. It says: " I worked as a waitress in a fast food cafe. Day in, day out, same boring routine. Some boring life. It was all wrong. It didn't feel like me that was doing it at all. I felt like I'd fallen from another planet and landed in this strange girl's body, but it wasn't me at all. I was meant to be somewhere else. Each night I'd walk home and I'd look up at the stars through the gaps in the clouds, and I tried to imagine where I really came from. I dreamed that one day everything would come right. I'd be carried off back home, back to my real mum and dad. Then it actually happened and I ended up here. Ended up working as a waitress again, only this time I couldn't dream about going nowhere else. There wasn't nowhere else to go. "

The second image is a quote from coraline. It says: “You know that I love you." And despite herself, Coraline nodded. It was true. The other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew knew that the other mother loved her as a possession, nothing more, a tolerated pet whose behavior was no longer amusing.”

the third image is a screenshot from sunforgrace, it says " like. do you ever wish you could become your mother’s child again. do you ever wish you could forget. do you ever wish you could start over as the child she loved and turn into the person she wanted. maybe she’ll want you this time. do you ever wish you could hold onto the memory of what it was to be loved unconditionally by her"

the fourth image is a quote overtop an image of a house. it says "there are so many things that i miss but deep down there's still a hope that better things are coming for me."

the fifth image is a tumblr screenshot. it says "my mother should've done something, my mother should've done something, my other should have- "

the sixth image says: "and this is how you treat your daughter?"

/ID]

[philippageorgiou]

i felt like i'd fallen from another planet and landed in this strange girl's body, but it wasn't me at all. i was meant to be somewhere else. each night i'd walk home and i'd look up at the stars through the gaps in the clouds, and i tried to imagine where i really came from.

ace in every story ↠ dragonfire

[une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir]

Aegon VI Targaryen = Viserys

When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs.  (...) Another was pale cream streaked with gold.

Hypothesis: Aegon VI Targaryen = Viserion

“The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.”

What Viserys couldn’t do? Be crowned as the Kng of the Seven Kingdoms. In the show, Aegon VI does not exist. However, Cersei was crowned as the Queen of the “Seven Kingdoms and she employs the golden company. It is likely that Cersei’s story was based on Aegon’s.

Viserys was “crowned” though... a golden crown.

"You cannot touch me, I am the dragon, the dragon, and I will be crowned!"

Khal Drogo unfastened his belt. The medallions were pure gold, massive and ornate, each one as large as a man's hand. He shouted a command. Cook slaves pulled a heavy iron stew pot from the firepit, dumped the stew onto the ground, and returned the pot to the flames. Drogo tossed in the belt and watched without expression as the medallions turned red and began to lose their shape. She could see fires dancing in the onyx of his eyes. A slave handed him a pair of thick horsehair mittens, and he pulled them on, never so much as looking at the man.

Viserys began to scream the high, wordless scream of the coward facing death. He kicked and twisted, whimpered like a dog and wept like a child, but the Dothraki held him tight between them. (...)

When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother. 

The sound Viserys Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering … yet no drop of blood was spilled.

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

Viserys is held down by the Dothraki preventing him from escape, while Drogo uphends the melted gold upon his head. Similarly, Cersei was held down in King’s Landing by the Dothraki preventing her from escape, while (Danerys upon) Drogon burned the castle upon her head.

Danerys usurps Viserys, despite him being the rightful king. More, she doesn’t believe Viserys is a true dragon because he was killed by fire.  It’s safe to assume she’ll justify her actions the same for Aegon. He burns with the rest, he’s no true dragon either.

Its in the House of Undying prophecies as well...

three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .(...) Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . . 

There’s the gold and there’s the corpse... but also, a bride of fire.

She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought.

Danerys turns King’s Landing into Aegon’s funeral pyre. Evil.

What else? All of Viserion’s mentions are listed below... and some of them fit what we saw in the show.

A Clash of Kings

“The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.” (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

As said, Aegon will be crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms, doing what Viserys could not. If show!Cersei took over book!Aegon’s role... this fits.

How long the city had been deserted she could not know, but the white walls, so beautiful from afar, were cracked and crumbling when seen up close. Inside was a maze of narrow crooked alleys. The buildings pressed close, their facades blank, chalky, windowless. Everything was white, as if the people who lived here had known nothing of color. They rode past heaps of sun-washed rubble where houses had fallen in, and elsewhere saw the faded scars of fire. At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. On her shoulder, Viserion hissed. (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

Vaes Tolorro, the city of bones , a city sacked by Dothraki and that they think is filled with ghosts. Six alleys coming together at an empty marble plinth. A city beautiful from afar, cracked and and crumbling up close. Similarly, King’s Landing, the city of ashes, after Danerys and the Dothraki are finished sacking it. Six dragon roads coming together at the capital. A city that Danerys believes to be beatiful from afar, but she’ll reduce to ruins once she comes close. Fits.

She wondered whether Aegon's Red Keep had a pool like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must, surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful than any other place in the world. The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

Not even subtle... Fits..

[Robert Baratheon] sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. "What was the manner of his death?" On her shoulder, pale Viserion flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air. (ACOK ~ Danerys II)

In the show, Varys tried to poison Danerys because she’s crazy. In the books, Varys is #TeamAegon. It’s likely Varys will try to poison her on his behalf. Fits, though the motive will most likely be another.

Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. (ACOK ~ Danerys III)

Aegon and whoever stands in for Rhaegal (Jon), fighting over something. It’s likely they’ll fight over north / vale / riverlands. This happens while Drogon (Danerys) soaks beneath the sun (Slaver’s Bay, Volantis, you know the warm places, etc). Speculation for book only, most likely Jon and Aegon will naturally clash in TWOW / ADOS, while Danerys is terrorising beyond the narrow sea.

A STORM OF SWORDS

Rhaegal and Viserion were the size of small dogs, Drogon only a little larger, and any dog would have out-weighed them; they were all wings and neck and tail, lighter than they looked. And so Daenerys Targaryen must rely on wood and wind and canvas to bear her home. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Most likely, just an introduction. Could indicate Danerys’ forces will outmatch Jon and Aegon separately though. In the show, this fit for #TeamJon.

"Well, how long does a dragon live?" She looked up as Viserion swooped low over the ship, his wings beating slowly and stirring the limp sails. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

A dragon lives until you kill them. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly.. Fits.

So I see. Dracarys?"

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. "Be careful with that word, ser, or they're like to singe your beard off. It means 'dragonfire' in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance."  (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

All three dragons are eager to fight. “three heads has the dragon”. The Dance of Dragons II.

"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. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Not even subtle. “three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . . (...) Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.

Aegon and Jon, fighting over something. It’s likely they’ll fight as a north  faction versus south faction. Either against each other for the land, or against Danerys to defend each of their factions. Either way, these must be the root of their betrayals. This is speculation for book only, for TWOW / ADOS.

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping to his perch above the porthole. "The ploy worked well."

The exile knight did not return her smile. "These are Illyrio's ships, Illyrio's captains, Illyrio's sailors . . . and Strong Belwas and Arstan are his men as well, not yours." (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Viserion turning away from Danerys, once he hears her laugh and Drogon hiss. Similarly, Aegon turned away from Danerys, once Tyrion implies that Danerys wouldn’t take him seriously because she’s more powerful than him (Drogon is bigger than his siblings, he bullies them often). So Aegon takes Illyrion’s ships, captains, sailors, what have you, they are his and not hers. Illyrio is invested in Aegon, not Danerys. Much later, we have this...

I know she is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that. (...) Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up with your begging bowl in hand and say, 'Good morrow to you, Auntie. I am your nephew, Aegon, returned from the dead. I've been hiding on a poleboat all my life, but now I've washed the blue dye from my hair and I'd like a dragon, please … and oh, did I mention, my claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than your own?' "

Aegon's mouth twisted in fury. "I will not come to my aunt a beggar. I will come to her a kinsman, with an army."

"A small army." There, that's made him good and angry. The dwarf could not help but think of Joffrey. I have a gift for angering princes. "Queen Daenerys has a large one, and no thanks to you."

Aegon will not beg.... Viserys bristled. "Guard your tongue, Mormont, or I'll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg." I’m not saying Aegon’s like Viserys. I’m saying Aegon is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. It is his by right, not hers. Fits.

Drogon raised his head and screamed, pale smoke venting from his nostrils, and Viserion flapped at her and tried to perch on her shoulder, as he had when he was smaller. "No," Dany said, trying to shrug him off gently.

"You're too big for that now, sweetling." But the dragon coiled his white and gold tail around one arm and dug black claws into the fabric of her sleeve, clinging tightly. Helpless, she sank into Groleo's great leather chair, giggling.  (ASOS ~ Danerys II)

Viserion’s behaviour is interesting. Might suggest Aegon tries to seek an alliance later after all. Speculation.

"They have been wild while you were gone, Khaleesi," Irri told her. "Viserion clawed splinters from the door, do you see? And Drogon made to escape when the slaver men came to see them. When I grabbed his tail to hold him back, he turned and bit me." She showed Dany the marks of his teeth on her hand.

"Did any of them try to burn their way free?" That was the thing that frightened Dany the most.

"No, Khaleesi. Drogon breathed his fire, but in the empty air. The slaver men feared to come near him." (ASOS ~ Danerys II)

Viserion tried to escape again. Fits.

"Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

"Quaithe?" Dany sprung from the bed and threw open the door. Pale yellow lantern light flooded the cabin, and Irri and Jhiqui sat up sleepily. "Khaleesi?" murmured Jhiqui, rubbing her eyes. Viserion woke and opened his jaws, and a puff of flame brightened even the darkest corners. There was no sign of a woman in a red lacquer mask. "Khaleesi, are you unwell?" asked Jhiqui.

"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. (ASOS ~ Danerys III)

No idea.

Drogon flew almost lazily at Kraznys, black wings beating. As he gave the slaver another taste of fire, Irri and Jhiqui unchained Viserion and Rhaegal, and suddenly there were three dragons in the air. (ASOS ~ Danerys III)

A three way battle  “the dragon has three heads”. The Dance of Dragons II.

"Yunkai will have war," Dany told Whitebeard inside the pavilion. Irri and Jhiqui had covered the floor with carpets while Missandei lit a stick of incense to sweeten the dusty air. Drogon and Rhaegal were asleep atop some cushions, curled about each other, but Viserion perched on the edge of her empty bath. "Missandei, what language will these Yunkai'i speak, Valyrian?" (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

In this chapter, Danerys threatens Yunkai, the yellow city, whose thematic are a lot of betrayals for... yes, that’s right... gold. The Wise Masters try to bribe her, Danerys steals their gold, Daario kills his boss for beauty (but he’s a sellsword, they only care about gold, and accordingly he dresses in... gold!). There are betrayals... for gold.

Drogon and Rhaegal keep together (alliance) but Viserion breaks away and goes to perch on the edge of the empty bath. Considering what the show did to “Aegon” (Cersei) and considering this, it reminds me of the King’s Landing summit where they agree to fight the Others together but then Cersei breaks faith and never shows up north. Fits, somewhat.

Something similar may happen in the books. The three dragons call a cease fire, but then Aegon shows them the middle finger and conquers King’s Landing (the empty bath) instead. Interestingly, the bath is empty, suggesting there’s nobody in power (maybe the Lannisters / Tyrells finally defeat each other and Aegon seizes the opportunity). Would fit perfectly. Aegon “betrays” for a gold, the golden crown of the Seven Kingdoms (Joff and Tommen’s crown is gold).

"Wise?" Dany sat crosslegged on a cushion, and Viserion spread his white-and-gold wings and flapped to her side. "We shall see how wise they are," she said as she scratched the dragon's scaly head behind the horns. (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

This is all in the same “betrayal for gold” chapter, so it’s interesting. Maybe after that trolling, Aegon attempts a new alliance. After all...

Griff put a black-gloved hand upon Prince Aegon's shoulder. "Spoken boldly," he said, "but think what you are saying."

"I have," the lad insisted. "Why should I go running to my aunt as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me … in Westeros."

Aegon grows bold, just like the dragons grow bold (this word is used) when they’re chained in the pits, and refuses to be beg. A dragon does not beg.

"When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?"

"I say, you are mad."    

"Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys."

The dragons answered. Rhaegal hissed and smoked, Viserion snapped, and Drogon spat swirling red-black flame. It touched the drape of Grazdan's tokar, and the silk caught in half a heartbeat. Golden marks spilled across the carpets as the envoy stumbled over the chest, shouting curses and beating at his arm until Whitebeard flung a flagon of water over him to douse the flames. "You swore I should have safe conduct!" the Yunkish envoy wailed.

The dragons go cray cray at Daniella’s “madness”. Maybe they rebel against her once she threatens to burn King’s Landing, unless Aegon surrenders. Speculation, but somewhat fits (Jon shanked her when she burned KL).

There’s something here for sure though, Danerys behaved abhorrently here with the Yunkai masters and at the show’s rendition of the dragonpit, trying the same dragon intimidating tactics and breaking safe conduct.

Daario upended the sack, and the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn spilled out upon her carpets. "My gifts to the dragon queen."

Viserion sniffed the blood leaking from Prendahl's neck, and let loose a gout of flame that took the dead man full in the face, blackening and blistering his bloodless cheeks. Drogon and Rhaegal stirred at the smell of roasted meat.

"You did this?" Dany asked queasily. (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

Daario IS NOT a precious cinnamon roll in search for love. Danerys is stupid.

Her captains bowed and left her with her handmaids and her dragons. But as Brown Ben was leaving, Viserion spread his pale white wings and flapped lazily at his head. One of the wings buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man's head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. "He likes you, Ben," said Dany.

"And well he might." Brown Ben laughed. "I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know." (ASOS ~ Danerys V)

Ben is a sellsword who betrays Danerys for... gold!, then reveals that he never betrayed her. Yeah right, LOOOL. As I said, Aegon might seek an alliance later, so Ben’s twice turncloak might alude to that. Would fit that scenario.

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!"   (ASOS ~ Danerys V)  

Dance of Dragons II. Seems to suggest the Jon and Aegon take arms against Danerys once she shows her true bitch colours. Again, suggested before.

There was no sign of Viserion, but when she went to the parapet and scanned the horizon she saw pale wings in the far distance, sweeping above the river. He is hunting. They grow bolder every day. Yet it still made her anxious when they flew too far away. One day one of them may not return, she thought.    (ASOS ~ Danerys VI)

Viserion running away from Danerys. Aegon turned away from Danerys once he grew bolder (a good word to use). Fits.

A DANCE OF DRAGONS

Viserion sensed her disquiet. The white dragon lay coiled around a pear tree, his head resting on his tail. When Dany passed his eyes came open, two pools of molten gold. His horns were gold as well, and the scales that ran down his back from head to tail. "You're lazy," she told him, scratching under his jaw. His scales were hot to the touch, like armor left too long in the sun. Dragons are fire made flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift. "You should be hunting with your brothers. Have you and Drogon been fighting again?" Her dragons were growing wild of late. Rhaegal had snapped at Irri, and Viserion had set Reznak's tokar ablaze the last time the seneschal had called. I have left them too much to themselves, but where am I to find the time for them?    

Viserion's tail lashed sideways, thumping the trunk of the tree so hard that a pear came tumbling down to land at Dany's feet. His wings unfolded, and he half flew, half hopped onto the parapet. He grows, she thought as he launched himself into the sky. (...) She watched Viserion climb in widening circles until he was lost to sight beyond the muddy waters of the Skahazadhan. (ADWD ~ Danerys I)

Fits. Bye bitch. The Martells send their regards.

Dany did not want to talk about the dragons. (...) Down in the pit, Viserion had snapped one of his chains; he and Rhaegal grew more savage every day. Once the iron doors had glowed red-hot, her Unsullied told her, and no one dared to touch them for a day. (ADWD ~ Danerys IV)

The dragons craned their necks around, gazing at them with burning eyes. Viserion had shattered one chain and melted the others. He clung to the roof of the pit like some huge white bat, his claws dug deep into the burnt and crumbling bricks. (ADWD ~ Danerys VIII)

Viserion running away from Danerys’ shackles, likewise Aegon turning away from Danerys’ entrapments and going his own way. Fits.

"The white one is Viserion, the green is Rhaegal. I named them for my brothers." Her voice echoed off the scorched stone walls. It sounded small—a girl's voice, not the voice of a queen and conqueror, nor the glad voice of a new-made bride.

Rhaegal roared in answer, and fire filled the pit, a spear of red and yellow. Viserion replied, his own flames gold and orange. When he flapped his wings, a cloud of grey ash filled the air. Broken chains clanked and clattered about his legs. Quentyn Martell jumped back a foot.

A crueler woman might have laughed at him, but Dany squeezed his hand and said, "They frighten me as well. There is no shame in that. My children have grown wild and angry in the dark."  (...)

They’re not fans of Danerys anymore, not even “sweet” Viserion (he’s the nicest of the three dragons). Rhaegal especially never was, since he’s been biting her hand since before he could fly. Hopefully, they have become fans of each other. Me wants some quality time between the dragon bros, complaining about their shitty father mother.

"All I know of dragons is what my brother told me when I was a girl, and some I read in books, but it is said that even Aegon the Conqueror never dared mount Vhagar or Meraxes, nor did his sisters ride Balerion the Black Dread. Dragons live longer than men, some for hundreds of years, so Balerion had other riders after Aegon died … but no rider ever flew two dragons."

Viserion hissed again. Smoke rose between his teeth, and deep down in his throat they could see gold fire churning.

"They are … they are fearsome creatures."

No idea. Reminds me of that dumb cliff talk in the show tho. Instead of Quentyn being afraid and (later) being killed by Rhaegal, Jon was brave to pet the lizard.

I leave outside this post Barristan’s and Quentyn’s chapters, which have a lot of description. They’re basically about Viserion and Rhaegal breaking free. Of note, Viserion tries to run away from Quentyn (he just wants to be free :<) and Rhaegal kills Quentyn after he raises the leash against his brother (oooh).

[jessequinones]

DragonFire (Book 2 ) Fallen Star Review

TLDR

That kind of sums up my experience, too long, didn’t read. I got 80% of the way through this story before I gave up which is a shame because the beginning was good but then it kind of fell apart.

In the beginning, Blaze is hyper-fixing on figuring out who/what he is, all the while Risha really needs some loving, like girl, if he hasn’t noticed your advances for an entire year, best to move on. Anyway, it felt like LJ Davies has a better understanding of his characters, they feel more fleshed out (except for Risha) and I’m enjoying it. The problem started in the first fight scene.

I know I have aphantasia and difficulties imagining most things, but that first fight scene and every other fight scene felt pointless and I couldn’t see anything. Again, I know I have aphantasia, but even I can at least keep track of a fight if it’s written well enough. These fights felt like they were filler even though several characters died, the story moves on like nothing happened and we get no time to reflect on the loss of any of these characters.

Sure the story tries to reflect on one of the character's death, but it reflects it by saying “We’ll just give them space” and before the dragon who’s affected by someone’s death gets to speak about their feeling, they get captured but not until after getting angry at Blaze and Risha for having a nice romantic moment the SAME NIGHT one of their friends died.

It feels like LJ Davies forgot to add in a few moments and decided to throw these things in because none of them felt right.

Blaze and friends escape their village, while escaping, Blaze and friends, (except for Pyro) begin to play games WHILE ON THE RUN and are confused as to why Pyro is telling everyone to knock it off.

Blaze kills a dragon and is confused, upset, and hurting, thinking he’s a monster, at the fact he killed one of his own kind and feeling disgusted by it? That never gets brought up again.

One of Blaze’s friends gets killed? Let’s have Blaze and Risha spend a nice moment together the same night.

There are just so many moments that either feel off or are just never expanded upon it took me out of the story because I honestly don’t know which moment was gonna be important and which one was filler.

I don't even want to get into the fact of how Blaze was in the wrong, Pyro was right, but the story made it feel like Pyro was in the wrong. You see what happened was that Blaze saw a village getting attacked and wanted to save them. Pyro said they're currently on the run and need to get to their destination, it'll be a foolish idea to try and save a random village because they might get killed, so what did Blaze do? He goes to the village and nearly dies but only to get rescued by his friends at the last minute putting everyone at risk and it's because of him (which the story doesn't bring up mind you) that led to the death of one of his friends.

Also...what was the plot of this book? I stopped reading at the 80% mark, I feel like I should know what the main plot of this story was. The first book was simple, save Tarwin. This one...save Blaze’s friends? That’s not the plot of the story, they all get captured trying to get to their location but they get taken to the same place they were heading to anyway which was to do what again? Was it to clear Blaze's name? Stop the invasion? Who was invading?

Who’s the main villain of this story?

I need to read a different review or google the summary of this book just to have an understanding of what I read because this book was really...really boring and it felt like there was a lot of filler.

The chapters were long and with my slow reading speed, it took me days to get through one of them. They just wouldn’t end and I like to read at least one chapter a day, if it takes multiple days to read one chapter, I’m not enjoying the story.

To be honest, I’m most likely not gonna read any other books in the DragonFire series because I’ll most likely need to have an understanding of this book to read the next one and I can’t be bothered.

The first story was simple, save Tarwin while also showing off the world. There’s a monster that keeps appearing which all leads to a showdown at the end. It’s not the best book I’ve read, but it got the job done, I truly can’t tell you anything about this story and I just put it down yesterday.

What I can tell you is there’s a shadowy demon thing who’s planting seeds into Blaze’s mind that he’s a monster? I have no idea how it got inside Blaze’s skull, nor why it’s there. Its sole purpose is to inform Blaze he’s evil and that’s it. However, all of those “You’re evil” lines are useless if you remember Blaze is the poster child for being a good boy. Honestly, the story would be better if the shadow monster wasn’t there and Blaze is telling himself this, not an outside source.

There are also knockoff goblins who all sound the same and their sole purpose is to be evil and serve the dark lord I guess? There are two different goblins (let’s be honest, that’s what they are even if they aren’t stated that in the books). There are two of them who are named and not only can I not remember them, but they sound the exact same. One is supposed to be the leader of the other and I can’t tell you which.

I like the beginning. I wish I could’ve seen more of the Princess, heck, maybe even throw in a love triangle (not the one with Boltock, Ember, and Pyro). I just needed to connect with Blaze and his friends and taking them away from Blaze, even if it’s for a moment really didn’t help the story because I knew nothing bad was gonna happen to them despite the story saying something bad was about to happen one of them, I just couldn’t care so I’m moving on.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey. 

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k. 

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

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The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”    

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.  

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”  

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

[omgkatsudonplease]

[ficlet, bagginshield] shock and delight, pt 1 (bridgerton au)

The banks of the Brandywine River are packed with strolling couples on the day of the promenade, their chaperones following shortly behind. Thorin and the Fundinson brothers arrive exactly on time, Thorin carrying a bottle of Old Winyards. According to the sommelier in the shop at Bucklebury, this particular bottle was their last vintage one.

Bilbo and his chaperone Mr Greyhame show up a couple minutes late, the Hobbit fretting and dabbing at his brows with a monogrammed handkerchief. “I’m so terribly sorry for my lateness,” he flusters, hopping on one foot to the other like a nervous rabbit as he peers up at Thorin with a sheepish grin. “I forgot my pocket-handkerchief and had to go back for it.”

Thorin is caught between the absolute adorableness of Bilbo’s contrite pout and the absolute absurdity of the reason for his tardiness. 

“You are forgiven,” he declares instead. Bilbo’s pout smooths into a heart-melting smile.

The two of them begin to head down the path alongside the river, their pace leisurely. Other promenaders pass them by, as well as several open carriages pulled by unprotesting ponies. Thorin finds his gaze oddly drawn to the way the spring sunlight seems to burnish Bilbo’s curls into gold. Probably where Lord Stormcrow got the Golden Hare moniker, he thinks, before forcibly looking away towards a young Hobbit family having a picnic by the river. 

It’s a picture-perfect image of marital bliss. Thorin supposes something like that is what Bilbo is looking for, which Thorin himself obviously could not provide. Though he has yet to hear of any pushback against what must be an odd coupling by both Dwarvish and Hobbit standards, he is sure opposition will make itself known eventually. A marriage of true minds often lacks the productivity factor of a standard marriage, something which would be keenly felt in the family of a gentleman as distinguished as Bilbo Baggins’s. 

He, on the other hand, has already named his sister-children as his heirs. So it didn’t matter whether or not he married at all, nor did it matter whether or not his One (wherever they may be) possessed the physical apparatus or mental inclination for childbearing. 

“I have a question,” says Bilbo after a moment, breaking through Thorin’s thoughts like sunlight through stormclouds. “How do you know Gandalf? He’s an old family friend of mine, and apparently my cousin Fortinbras was the one who suggested he watch over me this season, but I don’t know how he would know you.” He looks thoughtful, hazel eyes peering inquisitively into Thorin’s face. 

In spite of himself, Thorin feels exposed, almost vulnerable. 

“I suppose Gandalf does have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, though,” muses Bilbo after a moment, before laughing and shrugging it off. “So? How do you know Gandalf?”

“To use your phrasing, Mr Greyhame has a finger in Erebor’s pie,” replies Thorin simply, not wanting to discuss how, years upon years ago, the Wizard had found his father in the depths of the Greenwood lost in enchantments and his own memories. King Thráin had, as the story went, finally succumbed to his grief about the deaths of his father and son, and had gotten lost in the Greenwood on his way to Azanulbizar to mourn them. 

He half suspects that telling Bilbo all of that would just make the poor Hobbit run off screaming in the opposite direction. So instead he bites his tongue, folding his hands behind his back. 

“I see,” says Bilbo, fiddling nervously with one of his cuff-links. “I’ve never been to Erebor. I’ve barely even left the Shire as-is.”

Thorin arches an eyebrow, remembering the abundance of maps and walking-sticks in Bag End the first time he’d gone over for dinner. The smial, though grand in size and luxurious in room variety, didn’t have the same cold ostentation as the mansions of Dwarves or Men. It felt homey, well-loved. A testament to lives well-lived.

No wonder Bilbo was so picky about the search for his One. If Thorin were not king, he would have wanted his halls just as cosy and warm, and he would have wanted to share it with only those who would brighten its nooks and crannies. 

“You certainly give the appearance of being well-travelled,” he says neutrally, still thinking of the maps and walking-sticks.

“Within the Shire,” demurs Bilbo. “I have had to go to Annúminas on business, of course, and once I went to Fornost with my parents on holiday, but Hobbits as a rule try to stick within the four farthings of the Shire. After all, why go out to see the rest of the world when the world comes to us every year?” 

His last question is both rhetorical and bitter. Thorin’s heart aches a little just hearing it. 

“So it is a matter of respectability?” he wonders wryly. Bilbo raises an eyebrow, so Thorin explains. “There is not much stopping you from running out of your front door and into the Blue, after all.”

Bilbo chuckles ruefully. “No,” he agrees. “But every time the side of me that craves adventures begins to make plans, the other side of me protests mightily, saying I’ll miss my books and my armchair and having six regular meals a day.”

Thorin has, indeed, noticed that restaurants and tea shops in the Shire have a more constant cycle of meals than anywhere else in Middle-earth. He’s honestly not complaining. 

“Speaking of meals,” he says, nodding towards the basket that Mr Greyhame is carrying, “I brought Old Winyards. Shall we find somewhere to sit?”

Bilbo checks his pocket-watch. “It’s halfway between elevensies and luncheon,” he remarks. 

“Yes,” says Thorin. “Consider it ‘lunchensies’.”

Bilbo bursts out in laughter at that, a bright joyful sound that rings through Thorin like one of the golden bells of Dale. His own stomach flutters a bit, and it takes all of his self-control to simply gesture for Balin and Dwalin to come help them set up their picnic on the banks of the Brandywine River. 

~~

Lunchensies is a success. Bilbo immediately takes a liking to Balin the moment they all sit down on the blanket together, happily chatting with him about books and history in between bites of his sandwich. Thorin watches them, unable to stop the smile on his face as he watches the way his old friend brightens under the Hobbit’s genuine inquisitiveness. 

“Yes, the road between here and Erebor was not as arduous as it used to be,” Balin is saying. “There is, of course, the stray highway robbery within Orc territory, but rumour has it that after the Shadow was broken at the end of the last Age, the majority of the Enemy’s armies have fallen out of its thrall and prefer to keep to themselves within the Mountains.”

“Occupying the ancestral halls of Khazad-dûm,” growls Dwalin. Thorin, too, feels the cold resentment deep in his stomach, but he tempers it by watching Bilbo chew thoughtfully at his sandwich, his nose twitching like a rabbit’s.

“While Durin’s Bane continues to live, Khazad-dûm cannot be retaken,” he reminds Dwalin. 

“If it continues to live,” muses Balin, before hastily switching the topic. “On the other hand, we are fortunate not to have awoken anything similar within Erebor. Though we did almost lose it to the firedrake Smaug.”

Thorin remembers the flames, remembers the lives lost to the dragon. The tragedy had seemed insurmountable at the time, but now he supposes rebuilding a Kingdom within the ashes of dragonfire was not as bad as being forced to flee for a new home like what had happened to his ancestors in Khazad-dûm.

“Almost?” echoes Bilbo, his eyes wide. Dwalin hands him and Thorin both glasses of the Old Winyards. Mr Greyhame, too, is helping himself to a liberal portion of the wine. 

“The Lady Mika, wife of the Lord of Dale, requited her husband’s death upon the dragon by shooting him with a black arrow,” explains Thorin as he pops a strawberry into his mouth. The fruit’s juices spill over his fingers; he hastily licks it off before wiping his fingers with the handkerchief.

Bilbo’s cheeks are dusted light pink when Thorin looks up again, and Thorin can feel his own cheeks heating in response.

“Well,” flounders the Hobbit, “that must have been terrible to go through. We haven’t had anything quite like that in the Shire, save for long and fell winters and the odd plague outbreak. But enough talk of dark and grim things! What is your favourite part of Erebor?”

The question throws Thorin for a moment. “Everything,” he says, but Bilbo raises a doubtful eyebrow at that. “All of Erebor is connected,” explains Thorin. “From the mines to the forges to the crafting halls, every part serves the whole.”

“Cogs in a machine,” muses Bilbo. “But what about a location? If you’ve grown up there all your life, surely you must have a favourite place. Secret hideouts from childhood, all of that.”

Thorin considers the question again, and this time the answer comes almost as if he had always meant to say it: “My mother’s garden,” he replies. “She kept a well-tended terrace beside the Royal apartments. We still take care of it, of course, and in the spring the cherry and apple blossoms blanket the grass like petalled snow.”

Bilbo’s expression lights up. “That sounds incredible,” he says.

“In the summer, the entire terrace is flooded with fireflies. I remember thinking once as a child that they were stars come down to play with us.” 

Bilbo’s hands tighten against the stem of his wineglass. “I should very much like to see that,” he says quietly. Thorin smiles, before noticing the knowing glint in their companions’ eyes.

He glares at them until they subside. 

[agentrouka-blog]

King’s Landing: Images of burning.

The show used a mediterranean setting for King’s Landing. White stone, paved streets. We saw lots of exploding rocks and rubble, but very little actual burning apart from the dragonfire itself. That always bothered me because it didn’t really look like a city on fire. 

The books will have a different take: 

Pate had never seen King’s Landing, but he knew it was a dauband-wattle city, a sprawl of mud streets, thatched roofs, and wooden hovels. (ACOK, Prologue)

It’s a tinderbox. Once it starts burning, it’ll be a firestorm with little opportunity for escape. 

Arya may be on the ground like she was on the show. She certainly gives us some intense images of fiery destruction on settlements and architecture in earlier books, to imagine the scene.

A day later Dobber spied a red glow against the evening sky. “Either this road went and turned again, or that sun’s setting in the north.” Yoren climbed a rise to get a better look. “Fire,” he announced. He licked a thumb and held it up. “Wind should blow it away from us. Still bears watching.” And watch it they did. As the world darkened, the fire seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until it looked as though the whole north was ablaze. From time to time, they could even smell the smoke, though the wind held steady and the flames never got any closer. By dawn the fire had burned itself out, but none of them slept very well that night. It was midday when they arrived at the place where the village had been. The fields were a charred desolation for miles around, the houses blackened shells. The carcasses of burnt and butchered animals dotted the ground, under living blankets of carrion crows that rose, cawing furiously, when disturbed. Smoke still drifted from inside the holdfast. Its timber palisade looked strong from afar, but had not proved strong enough. (ACOK, Arya)

This is a village and it lit up the horizon.

The barn’s on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. (…) Rushing through the barn doors was like running into a furnace. The air was swirling with smoke, the back wall a sheet of fire ground to roof. Their horses and donkeys were kicking and rearing and screaming. The poor animals, Arya thought. Then she saw the wagon, and the three men manacled to its bed. Biter was flinging himself against the chains, blood running down his arms from where the irons clasped his wrists. Rorge screamed curses, kicking at the wood. “Boy!” called Jaqen H’ghar. “Sweet boy!” The open trap was only a few feet ahead, but the fire was spreading fast, consuming the old wood and dry straw faster than she would have believed. Arya remembered the Hound’s horrible burned face. “Tunnel’s narrow,” Gendry shouted. “How do we get her through?” “Pull her,” Arya said. “Push her.” “Good boys, kind boys,” called Jaqen H’ghar, coughing. “Get these fucking chains off!” Rorge screamed. (...) “You take her!” she yelled. “You get her out! You do it!” The fire beat at her back with hot red wings as she fled the burning barn. It felt blessedly cool outside, but men were dying all around her. She saw Koss throw down his blade to yield, and she saw them kill him where he stood. Smoke was everywhere. There was no sign of Yoren, but the axe was where Gendry had left it, by the woodpile outside the haven. As she wrenched it free, a mailed hand grabbed her arm. Spinning, Arya drove the head of the axe hard between his legs. She never saw his face, only the dark blood seeping between the links of his hauberk. Going back into that barn was the hardest thing she ever did. Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men. She chewed her lip, and darted through the doors, crouched low where the smoke wasn’t quite so thick. A donkey was caught in a ring of fire, shrieking in terror and pain. She could smell the stench of burning hair. The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. Arya put a hand over her mouth and nose. She couldn’t see the wagon for the smoke, but she could still hear Biter screaming. She crawled toward the sound. And then a wheel was looming over her. The wagon jumped and moved a half foot when Biter threw himself against his chains again. Jaqen saw her, but it was too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face. Arya was running, coughing. She heard the steel crash through the old wood, and again, again. An instant later came a crack as loud as thunder, and the bottom of the wagon came ripping loose in an explosion of splinters. Arya rolled headfirst into the tunnel and dropped five feet. She got dirt in her mouth but she didn’t care, the taste was fine, the taste was mud and water and worms and life. Under the earth the air was cool and dark. Above was nothing but blood and roaring red and choking smoke and the screams of dying horses. She moved her belt around so Needle would not be in her way, and began to crawl. A dozen feet down the tunnel she heard the sound, like the roar of some monstrous beast, and a cloud of hot smoke and black dust came billowing up behind her, smelling of hell. Arya held her breath and kissed the mud on the floor of the tunnel and cried. For whom, she could not say. (ACOK, Arya) 

This is a barn on fire. One barn. 

There has been fire in King’s Landing before:

“Fire!” a voice screamed down from atop the barbican. “My lords, there’s smoke in the city. Flea Bottom’s afire.” Tyrion was inutterably weary, but there was no time for despair. “Bronn, take as many men as you need and see that the water wagons are not molested.” Gods be good, the wildfire, if any blaze should reach that . . . “We can lose all of Flea Bottom if we must, but on no account must the fire reach the Guildhall of the Alchemists, is that understood? (…)

Yet by evenfall the city was still in turmoil, though Bronn reported that the fires were quenched and most of the roving mobs dispersed. Much as Tyrion yearned for the comfort of Shae’s arms, he realized he would go nowhere that night. (ACOK, Tyrion)

They do have a functioning fire fighting system! But not one that will work in the middle of battle with dragonfire and wildfire involved. 

Apart from the Flames, smoke and ashes will kill the people:

The southern sky was black with smoke. It rose swirling off a hundred distant fires, ist sooty fingers smudging out the stars. Across the Blackwater Rush, a line of flame burned nightly from horizon to horizon, while on this side the Imp had fired the whole riverfront: docks and warehouses, homes and brothels, everything outside the city walls. Even in the Red Keep, the air tasted of ashes. When Sansa found Ser Dontos in the quiet of the godswood, he asked if she’d been crying. “It’s only from the smoke,” she lied. “It looks as though half the kingswood is burning.” “Lord Stannis wants to smoke out the Imp’s savages.” (ACOK, Sansa)

Sansa describes the view from above:

The smoke blotted out the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red Keep’s tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city Streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires everywhere. Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants with torches, and crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the ramparts. (ACOK, Sansa)

Imagine running through a maze in the middle of a searing blaze, the air so thick with smoke it is impossible to see, impossible to breathe. Crowds of panicking people running alongside. Trapped trapped by walls, trapped by the river. 

Beyond the Mud Gate and the desolation that had once been the fishmarket and wharves, the river itself seemed to have taken fire. Half of Stannis’s fleet was ablaze, along with most of Joffrey’s. The kiss of wildfire turned proud ships into funeral pyres and men into Living torches. The air was full of smoke and arrows and screams. Downstream, commoners and highborn captains alike could see the hot green death swirling toward their rafts and carracks and ferries, borne on the current of the Blackwater. The long white oars of the Myrish galleys flashed like the legs of maddened centipedes as they fought to come about, but it was no good. The centipedes had no place to run. A dozen great fires raged under the city walls, where casks of burning pitch had exploded, but the wildfire reduced them to no more than candles in a burning house, their orange and scarlet pennons fluttering insignificantly against the jade holocaust. The low clouds caught the color of the burning river and roofed the sky in shades of shifting green, eerily beautiful. A terrible beauty. Like dragonfire. Tyrion wondered if Aegon the Conqueror had felt like this as he flew above his Field of Fire. (ACOK, Tyrion)

Enough said. 

The level of inferno when Dany sets King's Landing on fire will be apocalyptic. Survival will depend on luck, if there is access to underground tunnels leading away from the destruction and the smoke, open gates allowing escape from a city under siege, non-flammable shelter not directly under attack. 

This will be so very ugly. 

[lunasohma]

Once Upon a Time

[ ao3 / ff.net ]

Natori Shuuichi goes on a quest.

Someone falls into step beside him.

"Oh, it's you, Lady Hinoe."

She blows smoke rings right in his face. He splutters accordingly. 

"Got a death wish?" 

The craggy mountain towers in the distance, the cave yawning wide at the top. A ring of smoke wreathes the peak as it has been for the past few weeks. Dragonfire. 

"I think my family has one for me," he mutters sullenly. 

"Oh, most definitely." She agrees immediately and peers curiously at him. "How haven't you noticed that yet?" He shoots her an incredulous look. She rolls her eyes.

"Cheer up, you pretty boy, you!" She reaches out to ruffle his hair and he's not quick enough to duck out of range, so now his scalp burns. Hinoe's nails are ever impeccable. He rubs his head gingerly. 

"You absolute baby," she drawls. "Surely a little peril and near-death experience will do you good." 

"You think I'm going to die?" Hinoe squints at him speculatively. 

"Hm, I'd say it's a fifty-fifty chance." Natori wonders why he still talks to her. (He sort of knows the answer; it's rather depressing.)

Hinoe sweeps ahead of him like she owns the forest. She probably would if it weren't for Takashi. 

"Oh!" She perks up. "It looks like Takashi's coming to say goodbye." Speak of the devil. Well.

"Goodbye," Natori echoes hollowly. 

The spirit Takashi usually presents himself in the form of a young man, his etherealness pervading in pearlescent silver locks and a vivid green gaze. He's accompanied by his cat (?) as usual. Takashi addresses said cat as 'Sensei.' Natori has yet to figure that one out. By all accounts, it seems as though it should be the other way around. 

Before the cat can launch himself at Natori's face and add to the scratches he'd put there last week, Takashi hurries to gather Sensei up in his arms, with an apologetic look to Natori. In many ways, the spirit's demeanor plays to his projected image. Natori's stopped wondering why.

"Not goodbye," Takashi amends Hinoe's statement with a kind smile. "I'm certain we'll see you in one piece yet."

"Gee, thanks." The spirit's laughter is like tinkling bells. 

-

They make for a strange party now. 

Takashi is perched regally atop Natori's horse. He's always liked Mirabelle and she likes him. Hinoe and the cat are digging through his saddlebags as they walk. Natori drags a hand down his face. 

"And how are you going to do anything?" Hinoe asks, around a mouthful of his provisions. "All you like to do is play with those paper dolls." 

And that's kind of the reason he's here. It's the Natori heir's chance to prove himself. Natori Shuuichi was born with a propensity for magic, the likes of which hadn't been seen since the House of Matoba was at the height of its power. 

But nowadays, wielders of magic are few and far between, shunned, and sometimes hunted, for their abilities. Any revitalization of the magical arts is feared and would be especially so within any of the Great Houses again. For that reason, Natori's own ability was kept out of the public's knowledge. And Natori himself kept the fact of his Sight from the rest of his family. Even so, it seems that he's finally been shooed off into the wilderness to be killed under the pretense of honor. Joy. 

"You're not going to be killed." Takashi rouses him from his melancholia. Natori eyes him suspiciously. 

"Are you clairvoyant now or something?" 

"I'm still working on that." These days, Takashi only seems to be getting stronger. 

"It's written all over your face," he continues patiently. "I wouldn't believe it's so cruel as that." 

"Oh really." Natori can't keep the incredulity out of his voice. 

Takashi's gaze flickers up to the mountain's peak then back to him. 

"We'll see."

-

They're at the base of the mountain now. So much for gradual inclines, it rises at a dangerous near ninety degrees. 

"I'm going to get Misuzu to lift you up," Hinoe is saying as Takashi loops a protective arm around his mare's neck. 

"Not going to accompany me?" Natori asks dryly. 

"Someone's got to stay with Mirabelle." Takashi pats her nose as his cat starts in.

"You brat, you should be grateful that we're here at all!" He's fairly imperious. "There were plenty of things that could've eaten you in the past two minutes alone!" 

"Why do I get the feeling you're one of them?"

"Well, maybe I am now," the cat growls. 

They're interrupted by the arrival of Misuzu. 

Misuzu's perpetual grin is stretched across his face. He lowers his head so that one of his eyes is more or less level with Natori's head. One of his frogs hops right onto Natori's face. Hinoe and the cat snicker. Takashi delicately picks the amphibian off because he's nice like that. 

"Young Natori," Misuzu rumbles, "so you've come to slay the dragon."

"That's the idea." Natori suddenly feels eternally tired. He hefts the family sword. An honor, they said. If honor weighed a ton, then sure. 

Misuzu's grin widens and he starts laughing. Natori feels as though he should be more offended. He is about to die after all. 

"Well, I wish you luck." 

-

"You're not a dragon."

"Am I not?"

Tendrils of shadow swirl around the figure, amassing into a serpentine shape. And suddenly Natori's on his back. Obsidian scales catch silver, even in the low light. Natori glimpses needle-sharp teeth and long claws hold him in place now. 

The dragon's right eye is missing. It's not the worst thing Natori's seen, but it's still pretty bad. When he reaches up, it flinches back. 

"Would you turn back?" The dragon's tail flicks pensively, good eye searching his. 

Natori tries again. "Please? My medical supplies aren't proportioned for dragons."

Hinoe always says that he's stupidly kindhearted. Natori argues that Takashi is even more so. But then she'll point out that Takashi is powerful enough to deal with the repercussions and Natori can't really disagree with that. Takashi just smiles, ever an enigma. 

It's the purported heir of the Matobas. He's got a nasty infection where his eye is missing and seemingly, a low tolerance for pain. 

"Will you stop squirming?" 

Seiji stills for one second before resuming his fidgeting in earnest. Natori suspects he's doing it on purpose at this point. 

"You're not going to kill me?"

“I don't think that was a possibility in the first place." Natori rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. He's absolutely rubbish with a sword. Perhaps not the smartest thing to be admitting to a dragon shifter, but somehow he feels it's all right. 

Natori loops the clean cloth once, twice around the other's head, then neatens the ends as best he can. Seiji inspects his handiwork in a nearby puddle. 

"I look like a pirate."

"Pirates are cool," Natori says supportively. 

Natori wonders why he's all alone way up here, but he doesn't pry. Seiji himself doesn't offer any explanations. 

But Natori knows his history. The Matobas had been experimenting with darker forms of magic. Extravagant rumors propagated and caused the stigma against magic to grow exponentially. It eventually culminated in an all-out bloody campaign to exterminate magic and those used it all together. It hadn't really worked - did they really think it would? - but it certainly succeeded as a warning. And the House of Matoba, bearing the worst of the attack, had fallen to ruin and all but vanished. 

It's rather tragic, in a fateful kind of way. This encounter could have ended with a little less magic in the world. Natori wonders if his family had known. But then again, he supposes that it wouldn't really concern them. 

Natori starts to gather his things.

"Are you leaving?" The other tries for disaffected, but the question still comes out a bit forlorn, giving Natori pause.

“Actually, I think I can stay awhile.”

The sky is deepening to indigo and the horizon is streaked with crimson. The moon and stars will rise soon. 

“Your friends?”

Natori peers down the cliff face. Takashi is weaving wildflowers into Mirabelle’s mane. Hinoe and the cat have somehow procured numerous bottles of drink and were now heavily indulging. Misuzu looms over the group – a larger than life presence. His eye meets Natori’s momentarily and his grin stretches ever wider, knowingly. Beside him, Seiji starts slightly. 

“Don’t worry,” Natori assures, “that’s one of his friendly smiles.” 

He doesn't look too convinced. 

"I'll introduce you if you'd like." Seiji blinks at him in surprise. 

"Um, okay?" 

"Come on then." Natori stands, brushing himself off, and holds his hand out. 

After a beat, Seiji takes it.  

It turns out that Seiji knows the mountain that he's been living on better than Natori does. Go figure. 

Even so, he doesn't let go of his hand as he carefully leads them down. 

It's warm.

[robertfrobisherslover]

The Depths of the Ocean 

...

Jaime smiled at her, and though it was all but an echo of the ones he had gifted her in the past, it warmed her better than any fire.

“I wanted to die in the arms of the woman I loved,” he said softly, and Brienne pursed her lips together to stop herself from breaking in front of him. His hand loosened its grip on hers, and traversed up her body to her face. She thought she could see the reflection of her tears in his eyes before realising they were his own. “And I thought that after… after everything I’ve done… or everything I’ve done to make amends for everything I did, that I deserved to.”

He didn’t say it like a fact, instead like he was asking her permission. The man who had killed a king, who had betrayed the throne many times over, who had fought the dead by her side, asking her permission to die in her arms. And it was more than that, she realised – it was a plea for her to tell him, to finally let him go knowing that he had redeemed himself. The look on his face betrayed his fear that she would reject it.

She breathed in heavily.

“You do deserve it. You deserve more.”

He closed his eyes and inched across the sand, pressing his lips against her forehead. In a brief moment of madness, she laughed a little at the thought that had they been standing, she would’ve had to have ducked for him to reach. But the laughter died in her throat when she realised that Jaime Lannister would never stand on his own two feet again.

He couldn’t die lying down.

Brienne pulled herself up into a sitting position, and, with all the delicacy and grace that she had never mastered, she managed to get Jaime up from the sand too. He immediately slumped onto her shoulder, pressing all of his weight against her side, and Brienne knew she would’ve carried every pound of it for the rest of her days if it meant he would survive this.

But the gods were not that forgiving. Nor were they that cruel.

(From the top - that bit was just an excerpt, not the beginning!!)

“Ser Brienne. It’s him.”

Two words. Two words that she had both longed and dreaded to hear. Her hands did not shake – she had trained herself out of that a long time ago (it was no good to be a knight whose sword-hand shook at the first sign of danger) – but she could not stop the tremble in her lips, nor the sudden pain in her chest as if Oathkeeper itself had been forced through her heart.

The days since he had ridden away from her at Winterfell had become unbearably long. The sun dragged across the sky as if it did not wish to pass, and the night settled in almost begrudgingly, the moon and her stars uncomfortable and hesitant in the sky. It felt as if her whole life had come to a grinding halt; her mission complete, the war over, no battles left to fight. The righteous light she had followed ever since she first picked up a sword at six and put it down thirty years later… it had been extinguished. Directionless and lost she had returned home, hopeful to find some semblance of a purpose. And perhaps to leave the memories of what had been – and what could’ve been – behind her, locked away in another land where she could not touch them anymore. Where they couldn’t hurt.

“Where?”

The words snapped like icicles falling from a branch, and she regretted them, seeing Podrick’s blanched reaction. He stared down at the floor of Evenfall hall and directed his answer towards the stone there instead.

“By the beach, Ser,” Podrick replied, “He ran aground but a few minutes ago.”

Brienne dropped her head into her open palm, her elbow propped up on the armrest of her throne. Not quite one made of a thousand broken swords, but one that gave her rule over this land all the same. She was sure this one was just as cold as the one in King’s Landing.

She anticipated Podrick’s next words before the squire even had the time to put them into a sentence, and she blinked away tears that she could not afford to shed in this hall. Not that she would deign to waste any more on this man. Even if he had broken her heart. Even if he had left her in the snow. She clenched a fist. No more.

“He’s asking for you.”

She rose from her makeshift throne and stood high above all the noblemen left to serve her house. She towered above them, ants beneath her, men who had scurried away during the Great War and hidden on the isle. She hated keeping company with them, hated that they had abandoned their oaths at the time for which those oaths were written, but it would not do to banish subjects. Not when there was so much to be repaired. And it was not as if she were not used to the company of men who had broken their promises.

She had heard some of them talking about her. When she was a child, they had called her naïve. Now, still carrying the weight of all that she had done to keep herself and the people she was sworn to alive, they had the gall to call her bitter. And it wasn’t bitterness. It wasn’t. It was that she finally understood the pain of losing: not of being defeated in a joust, or the constant rejection she had faced her entire life. The pain of having something so beautiful in the palm of her hand, and it falling from her grasp. She understood the pain of having gold, and having to give it away.

She gave Pod a tight-lipped smile.

“Of course he is.”

Jaime Lannister was not in good shape. She hadn’t expected him to be, but even so it was clear. This was not a man returning to her begging for forgiveness. He was here to die.

She was accompanied down to the beach by a few members of Tarth’s council – men eager to get a look at the man who had bedded the first female knight in the history of the Seven Kingdoms (which was perhaps a kinder consideration than she had expected, though still not one that she cherished) – and her loyal companion Podrick Payne, who had refused to stay in Winterfell without her. But the moment she caught sigh of dirt-blonde hair set against the wet sand and the deep blue sea, she banished them all. This was not a moment she wished to share with anyone else than him.

If the contrast of his hair against the shore was noticeable, then the carmine streaks of dried blood up the sides of his boat, moored nearby, were moreso. There were wounds in his sides, both infected beyond the skills of any master living or dead. His face was pallid, bearded and thinner than she remembered: the face of a man who had been drifting out at sea for far too long.

If he had been half a god before, then surely now he was Icarus, brought down from the heavens to her feet.

And yet, as he turned to look at her – with visible effort, and a deep groan that seemed to resonate through the sand to rattle her bones – the mere sight of him, of the green eyes that had consumed her on so many nights in the North, began to stitch together the mess in her chest that had festered for too long.

She lied down in the sand next to him, too close to the ocean so that every wave that made its way inland soaked through her boots. She barely noticed.

His voice was a rasp. It hearkened her back to the last time she had seen him so ill, to that bathtub in Harrenhal all those lifetimes ago, the first time she had looked at him and saw a man worthy of her respect. He had fallen so much further since then. And yet he was still the most beautiful thing Brienne had ever seen in her life.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quiet enough that she could have mistaken it for the breeze. They were coming to the end of winter now, but Tarth always caught the end of the season worse than the rest of Westeros. The sky above them was clear and brilliantly blue, but there was a chill in the air that should’ve made her shiver. And yet…

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, reaching for her hand and bringing it to his cracked lips.

She knew then. She understood. He had not left for love – or rather he had, but not love for his twisted sister. Love for her. And at the end of it all, he had come back to her.

“It’s okay,” Brienne murmured back to him, shifting on her side to look at him. They latched onto one another’s gaze and the rest of the world fell away from them for a few moments at least. It felt as if they had dropped off the edge of existence. And she wished with all of her heart that they could stay that way, just for a little longer.

Jaime was struggling with his breathing, so Brienne took the reins of the conversation.

“It’s okay,” she said again, even though it wasn’t, even though nothing about this was okay, “You came back. It’s okay.”

He gripped her hand as tightly as he could in his left. She noticed his golden hand was nowhere to be seen. It was probably destroyed in the dragonfire that had left King’s Landing nothing more than a burnt out crisp, a hollow shell of a kingdom that had once been the envy of all the world.

Jaime smiled at her, and though it was all but an echo of the ones he had gifted her in the past, it warmed her better than any fire.

“I wanted to die in the arms of the woman I loved,” he said softly, and Brienne pursed her lips together to stop herself from breaking in front of him. His hand loosened its grip on hers, and traversed up her body to her face. She thought she could see the reflection of her tears in his eyes before realising they were his own. “And I thought that after… after everything I’ve done… or everything I’ve done to make amends for everything I did, that I deserved to.”

He didn’t say it like a fact, instead like he was asking her permission. The man who had killed a king, who had betrayed the throne many times over, who had fought the dead by her side, asking her permission to die in her arms. And it was more than that, she realised – it was a plea for her to tell him, to finally let him go knowing that he had redeemed himself. The look on his face betrayed his fear that she would reject it.

She breathed in heavily.

“You do deserve it. You deserve more.”

He closed his eyes and inched across the sand, pressing his lips against her forehead. In a brief moment of madness, she laughed a little at the thought that had they been standing, she would’ve had to have ducked for him to reach. But the laughter died in her throat when she realised that Jaime Lannister would never stand on his own two feet again.

He couldn’t die lying down.

Brienne pulled herself up into a sitting position, and, with all the delicacy and grace that she had never mastered, she managed to get Jaime up from the sand too. He immediately slumped onto her shoulder, pressing all of his weight against her side, and Brienne knew she would’ve carried every pound of it for the rest of her days if it meant he would survive this.

But the gods were not that forgiving. Nor were they that cruel.

They sat in silence for a small time, clutching onto each other, both aware of how little time they had left.

He was so close that she felt his voice on her neck.

“This is a nice island you’ve got here wench. I saw it once, from a distance, a long time ago.” He stopped for a moment, reminiscing, stuck in a memory of the past. “Back when I thought I was never going to see you again.”

The pain laced through his voice in that exclamation lanced through her like poison. It wasn’t like them to be so sincere with one another. It hurt more than if he were insulting her.

“Well unfortunately for you…” Brienne murmured into his ear, trying to lighten the mood, despite knowing it would do little.

Jaime bit back almost immediately, “Never unfortunately. Never. I had the luck and grace of all the gods to have met you.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she held him closer.

“Well now I know that you’re dying,” she said, her voice rattled, the words coming out in a broken fashion, like she had forgotten how to speak, “You’ve never been so complimentary of me in all of your life.”

“Not out loud, anyway.”

She couldn’t listen to this. It was a war inside her head. She knew… she knew this was where Jaime would draw his last breaths, and she couldn’t deny him the chance to tell her what he felt. But hearing him say all of these things – had he told her that he loved her? How was she supposed to ever come to terms with that? – confirmed that he knew his time was up too.

She couldn’t listen to it, so Brienne changed the subject.

“I heard from Lady Sansa that the Red Keep was all but destroyed. You didn’t have to go there. You didn’t have to do this to yourself.”

She tried to keep the anger out of her voice, not wanting their last conversation to become an argument. Although it maybe would’ve suited them both – maybe it would’ve been the perfect ending for them. Or even better, a way to keep him alive – Brienne knew Jaime would never allow himself to die before he had bested her in a fight.

“I did,” he replied, and the conviction in his voice was enough to convince her there and then. “I caught up to her as she was clambering into that sailing boat, with some of the finest Lannister jewels in a satchel alongside her. Enough for a whole new life across the Narrow Sea, where they would never know the evil passing through their midst. Euron Greyjoy was accompanying her – she could never go anywhere without a suitable bedfellow, I suppose. And it wasn’t going to be me.”

The deep wounds penetrating his torso were then explained. At least his being here meant that there was one less tyrant unaccounted for. After the devastation wreaked in King’s Landing, the statuses of many people was just unknown.

Brienne bit her lip to keep herself from cursing Cersei Lannister. After everything she had done, she had the gall, the nerve, to try and just run away from it all. And yet, her brother was here in her arms – which could only mean than the Kingslayer had added another count of regicide to his name.

She looked at him and decided Queenslayer suited him rather well.

“You could’ve let her go,” Brienne said softly.

Jaime turned as well as he was able and looked her in the eyes, and shook his head like she was a young child.

“You and I both know that I couldn’t.”

Brienne felt tears falling down her cheeks, and this time she made no attempts to stop them. She couldn’t stop the desperation in her voice when she choked out, “She wasn’t worth your life.”

Jaime kissed her then, and she found the salt and blood on his mouth, and decided it was the best thing she had ever tasted. His breaths were laboured now, and it was not a long embrace, but she took it. She would’ve taken anything he was willing to give her in these moments.

“Maybe not. But the lives of all the people she hurt… when she destroyed the Sept of Baelor, the hundreds of Lannister men sent to die in her stead,” Jaime said, and now his voice was strong, almost as strong as it had been in Harrenhal, and the devastation and rage he surely felt overcame the pain his body was in, “My own son. Giving them justice… for what she did to them. That was worth it.”

Brienne could never forget how much Jaime had truly lost. For all of his teasing and jokes and comradery, there was a veil she had hardly dared to touch, a part of him she knew could never be fixed. Behind it was the agony of a man who had learned that he did not belong to his own family, and the unbearable pain of losing them a hundred times over, in a hundred different ways. The last of the Lannisters, one of the most noble houses in the Seven Kingdoms, and here he was, in her arms instead.

“I couldn’t have lived the rest of my life knowing she was out there, alive, unpunished,” he carried on, but the anger dissipated, and the next words were soft, “Not even if it meant I got to live it out with you.”

“I… Ser Jaime…” Brienne protested, but he cut her off, as he was so prone to doing.

“If it had been another way… I think you and I could have been happy for many great years.”

In his mind, he had seen them on Tarth, far away from the feuding and bickering and obsession with ruling. A quiet life. A peaceful one. A life where they would spar in the courtyard and then later in their chambers too. Maybe they would’ve had a babe or two. He knew he would’ve liked that – to have had the chance to truly be a father.

Brienne smiled at him then, despite it all. “We had many great days,” she said to him, and he mirrored her smile, knowing that she was right.

One day there would be stories of the two of them, and songs and ballads written too. There would be literature in all the realms of the Kingslayer and the Fair Maid, of the Golden and Sapphire Knights, of Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth.

“And perhaps even years would not have been enough,” he murmured.

And despite knowing that they would both live on long past their deaths, the weight of what could’ve been hung over them, a heavy shadow cast by nought but the destruction of a dream they had both been chasing all of these years.

“Jaime,” was all she managed to say before he cut her off again.

“it’s a shame wench,” he whispered, “I should’ve quite liked to have grown old with you.”

If leaving her at Winterfell had broken her heart, then that speared her soul.

“Stop it,” she gasped through tears, pleading with him. He kissed her neck, or maybe he just rested there, unable to move anywhere else. “Please don’t,” she said, and her words must’ve hurt him too for he closed his mouth and said nothing for some time.

Brienne could feel his breathing slow further next to her, and she knew that the hour was coming. It wasn’t fair. They had slew the dead during the darkest hour of history and lived to tell the tale. They had fought bears and dragons and all the shit that this life had thrown at them. Did they not deserve a happier ending? Did they not deserve some peace?

But she knew that for Jaime, perhaps this was his peace. For a man who had survived so much, maybe it was his time. It wasn’t for her to decide. She would plead to the gods but she knew they would not listen. Maybe she just had to let him go.

His coughed loudly and specks of blood landed in his beard. He slumped down from her shoulder back onto the sand, laying down on the beach where she had played as a child.

She had never seen this coming then. She had never even imagined that all these years later, she would be here with him, watching the world end.

“Brienne,” he managed to say, though the air was escaping from his lungs, the infection and rot and sepsis sprinting to finish him, “Please look at me. Look at me.”

She acquiesced, and to her surprise, his face was the very image of serenity. She lied back down next to him, knowing that this was the last time she would hold him. He closed his eyes, exhausted at the price of still breathing

“I love you,” she told him, quietly, gently, like it was a balm that would soothe all of his ills, “After everything that we went through, everything that we had to do. I love you.”

She stroked his cheek, held him in her hands the way she had when she had begged him not to leave her. She wouldn’t beg him now. There was nothing she could do. She kissed his hand, his forehead and wrapped him in her arms.

“You made me a good man. You saved me. You are the most wondrous creature I have ever encountered. My life… would’ve amounted to nothing without you,” he murmured, finally overtaken, the words taking a lifetime to come together into a sentence.

He felt his body slowing to a halt. It was indescribable. He had always expected he would die on the battlefield, and that it would be quick. He had never imagined he would take weeks to slip away. When he had clambered into that boat – having disposed of its two greedy occupants – he had set a course for Tarth, despite realising that he might never get there. But he had known that he had to try. If there was even a chance he could see her again, it was worth it. And maybe the gods were merciful then, that they had given him this last hour with her.

Jaime opened his eyes for the final time, and looked to Brienne, to the woman he had made a knight, the woman he had loved for the best part of his life, the woman who had given him back his honour and made him whole. If the gods offered him the chance to live until his ninetieth nameday if he gave her up, he would spit at their feet. All his life was worth it, for the joy of having known and loved her.

“And your eyes…,” he mumbled, staring up just as his last breaths escaped from his lips, “Like all the depths of the ocean brought to the surface, in your eyes…”.

Read here on AO3.