On His Way Back, Jon Swung Wide Of The Column's Line Of March And Took A Shorter Path Through The Thick

“Duty kept me here, serving Edelia, when I should have been at his side. Blaming you was easier than facing my own guilt. Promise me you will take care of him,” he scoffed. “That was never your responsibility to bear.”

“But it was,” Gem interrupted. Frustration roiled in her chest, swelling like a rising tide. “I loved him too.”

Danyel’s jaw tightened, and he looked away. “Love doesn’t excuse what he put you through. It doesn’t make it right that you had to shoulder a burden that wasn’t yours.”

“And yet, I chose to,” Gem said softly. “It wasn’t your responsibility, and it wasn’t mine. It was my choice. It was his choice, Danyel. It always was.”

“He was my brother. He needed me.”

“And your students needed you, too.”

“My duty—”

“What does it fucking matter!” she burst out suddenly. “What even is duty? Duty to Tomix, duty to family, duty to Edelia, duty to Lore—what do you do when they pull you in different directions? You can’t do it all. I can’t do it all. What if it’s all meaningless?” 

Danyel didn’t reply immediately. He studied her, jaw tight and knuckles white where his hands gripped the wooden ledge of the spiritloom. “You think it’s meaningless?” His voice was low, almost disbelieving. “You, the Hero of Falconreach?”

“I—I don’t know anymore.” Gem's voice cracked, and she looked away. Apprehend Sepulchure. Vanquish Drakath. Help the Rose. Stand by the Vind. Banish Envy. Save Tomix. It was too much. “What has duty ever done for me? And what did it ever do for Tomix? Did it save him? Did it save your family?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “All it did was leave you alone, just like it left me.”

He flinched as if struck. “So tell me—should I just abandon it? Pretend it doesn’t matter?”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t know. I just… I just wish it hadn’t cost us so much.”

Cat of the Canals/Arya in Braavos

Cat had made friends along the wharves; porters and mummers, ropemakers and sailmenders, taverners, brewers and bakers and beggars and whores.

A Basket of Ribbons - Guillaume Charles Brun (1869)

The Children open Ned Stark’s eye in His Mercy Burns

Art by the wonderful Nightcrow Art.

For my latest chapter, Eddard IX.

Towering far above the rest, the heart tree's bone-white bark flashed stark against the common green brush that sprawled across Old Harren's grounds, gleaming a cold alabaster as bright as his own cloak. Leaves spilled from slender grasping limbs like a million splayed hands dipped in blood. And upon its trunk, a face.

The visage had been slashed deep. If it was the work of man or god, Arthur could not say. Crimson sap oozed from slanted eyes like ancient tears, frozen dry upon pale drawn cheeks. It watched him with knowing disdain. A weirwood, he thought in awe. The last one standing below the Neck.

It was then that he saw the supplicant. A slight figure knelt before the heart tree, head bowed low in prayer. Slim as a winter sapling, and so still he might have mistaken it for carved stone. Scarcely more than a smudge of shadow upon the hard earth.

At the stir of their footfalls, the figure trembled slightly, then hopped to its feet with the swift grace of a startled doe and whirled.

It was… a girl-child. He’d not misjudged; even whilst standing she was a tiny slip of a thing. A strange thing. Her coltish frame was wrapped in a dove-grey gown, streaked with soil and trailing like morning mist about small bared feet. Dark chestnut hair tumbled loose and tangled past thin shoulders, framing windburnt cheeks flushed rosy with chill. Her eyes were sharp and wild, her teeth bared—and in her hands a tree branch, raised like a sword!

Not a little doe then, thought Arthur.

Then, a break in the clouds. A shaft of dying light broke through the clearing, striking the crown of the heart tree with sudden radiance. The deep scarlet leaves flared and shimmered like bloody embers. And there, half-lost amongst the high fronds, something swayed.

A shield. Upon it, the painted face of a weirwood, grinning wide and red.

Arthur froze.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

Snippet from A Crown of False Spring, Chapter 4.

Amit Elor & Mica Galvao

Commissions for @lucennia

Brandon stark (the cooler Ned)

Lady Stoneheart and the Little Night Wolf

Inspired by @agentrouka-blog’s thoughts of Arya and Catelyn potentially reuniting in the books. <3

lyanna <3

Rhaegar with baby Daenerys and Viserys

three-eyed raven