Fiona Apple Photographed By David Corio, 1997

there are old valyria velaryons everywhere to those with eyes that are willing to see

some doodles of Rickon and Shaggydog and Bran and Summer... I HC that after his wolf dreams Bran is CONVINCED summer can talk

Familiar, but not quite right

Cat & Lady Stoneheart

The wind whistled sharply through the mana trees, blowing a cold dead breath on her bloodless face. Suddenly it was as if all the strength had left her limbs. Her sword felt impossibly heavy, slippery. It fell from her trembling grasp, striking the ground with a hollow thud. When she looked down, she saw the blade was bright blue, and her hands bluer still—painted with the blood of the land she had carved through. The sight of it sent a wave of nausea through her.

She was no hero. In this moment, she was Death himself.

A splatter of wetness hit her cheek. It had started to rain. The droplets came slow and lazy at first, then fast and heavy, building into a mighty torrent that lashed against her skin as if it were the wrath of the very heavens.

But what of my wrath?

Last chapter of Storm's Breath and I'm sad it's over. Illustration of Gem in the Fissure by the most amazing @entropienn x

Bran!!

[#plantober2024] Thyme ║ [#goretober] Sharp Objects ║ [#spooktober] Hunt

In Need of Thyme

Apothecaries regularly engage in gardening or trade in order to procure their ingredients. However, when a recipe calls for special consideration, a call to action goes out to hunters to gather along the lit areas of the sunless lands.

The Swiftfoot Maid | Chapter 1, a snippet

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

“You’re a good dancer,” she said suddenly, eyes darting away too quickly as he startled and missed a step.

Edric caught her gaze, then swept them back into rhythm. “Thank you, my lady. I spent many years in King’s Landing, where even squires are expected to know their steps.”

“Grace-footed, then,” she acknowledged with a lift of her sharp chin. “But does that make you swift-footed?”

“No, my lady. I have never been the swiftest, nor the strongest.”

A crease came between her dark brows. “Then how is it you expect to defeat me?”

You were right, he scolded himself. You are a fool. But he only smiled lightly. “Fortune, perhaps.”

“I’ll not be shamed by defeat at the hands of fortune,” Arya scoffed. “No, I’ll not be shamed by defeat at all.”

Edric didn’t speak for a moment. He only moved in time with the music, with her. For all her steel and storm, she felt rather slight in his arms. It was almost enough to forget she’d speared a man through the heart that very morning. Up close, he could see the faintest powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Soft, like a kiss the sun forgot to take back.

He imagined she liked to spend her days beneath the sun.

“If I may be so bold,” he said at last, pivoting them through a swell of harp strings, “if fortune fails to favor you, how could it shame you to be bested? There are many great men vying for your hand. Sons of the kraken and the flayed man—warriors in their own right.”

“Courteous of you, to call them great,” she muttered. She searched his face, curious and sharp, her stormcloud stare pinning him in place. “And what of you, Lord Dayne? Are you a great man?”

“I…” Edric faltered, searching himself for the answer. The hearthfire roared at his back, swallowing the clangor into its molten breath. The moment nearly slipped—but he caught it. Remembered. Fallen and Reborn. He straightened. “I am Edric Dayne, Lord of Starfall. Descendant of the Kings of the Torrentine. Kin to the great Ser Arthur Dayne. Blood of those named Sword of the Morning, wielders of Dawn.”

Just for a heartbeat, he thought he saw a flash of surprise cross her eyes. But it vanished quick as lightning. Then she struck with a smirk.

“Ah, but you are not Dawn’s wielder, are you?”

"Each element shapes the fabric differently," Danyel explained to her on the fifth night, holding out a swatch of flame-threaded velvet that seemed to shimmer with heat. He contrasted it with a square of linen spun from water soulthreads, its coarse fibers carrying an almost imperceptible glow that softened in the flickering torchlight, cool and soothing to her touch. Wind threads, he said, are the trickiest, as they’re so slippery and light they resist the weave itself.

“And so it is with people, I think,” he added, his gaze drifting over the fabric as though seeing something more. “Some resist being woven into anything at all.”

On the seventh night, she learns from him that a weaver’s elemental affinity doesn’t always match their soulally’s. It was something Gem had always taken for granted. She remembered that Vaal, wherever he was now, shared the same element as his fiery partner. The mercurial chaosweaver was a red-hot blaze that kindled brilliance, but burned all that it touched. Danyel, of course, also matched Baltael. He was the wind that carried storms across the sea—unwavering in determination, his purpose steady even when unseen.

But when she had asked if she, too, was ice like Aegis, he had looked at her strangely. “No, you are not,” he had said, though he did not elaborate. What was she, then? The thought clung to Gem, curious and unnerving, long after the conversation had passed.

As the evenings went by, his presence seemed to settle around her like the quiet of a windless morning. She had always thought him cold, but she was starting to see the softness of his edges. Sometimes, when she made a sharp remark or jab, she would catch the briefest shift in his expression—an almost imperceptible crinkle at the corners of his eyes, like a smile trying to break free, before he quickly smoothed it away.

On his way back, Jon swung wide of the column's line of march and took a shorter path through the thick of the wood. The sounds of man and horse diminished, swallowed up by the wet green wild, and soon enough he could hear only the steady wash of rain against leaf and tree and rock. It was midafternoon, yet the forest seemed as dark as dusk. Jon wove a path between rocks and puddles, past great oaks, grey-green sentinels, and black-barked ironwoods. In places the branches wove a canopy overhead and he was given a moment's respite from the drumming of the rain against his head. As he rode past a lightning-blasted chestnut tree overgrown with wild white roses, he heard something rustling in the underbrush. "Ghost," he called out. "Ghost, to me."

But it was Dywen who emerged from the greenery, forking a shaggy grey garron with Grenn ahorse beside him. The Old Bear had deployed outriders to either side of the main column, to screen their march and warn of the approach of any enemies, and even there he took no chances, sending the men out in pairs.

"How did you get through the Wall?" Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. "Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from?

You're not even wet ..."

"There's a gate," said fat Sam. "A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it."

The Reeds exchanged a look. "We'll find this gate at the bottom of the well?" asked Jojen.

Sam shook his head. "You won't. I have

to take you."

"Why?" Meera demanded. "If there's a gate ...

"You won't find it. If you did it wouldn't open. Not for you. It's the Black Gate." Sam plucked at the faded black wool of his sleeve. "Only a man of the Night's Watch can open it, he said. A Sworn Brother who has said his words."

"He said." Jojen frowned. "This ….. Cold-hands?"-ASOS -Bran IV