#Dialogue with a Cottonwood Tree

[shootybangbang]

[Talking Bird] Ch 16: In which the plot finally makes an appearance

[Ao3 Link]

[Content Warning]: suicidal ideation, mild gore

[Note]: this fic has gone through some serious revisions — mostly expanded scenes/dialogue. The chapters most heavily affected are 1, 2, 3, and 7, but I’ve added a changelog to the end notes of each previous chapter detailing the edits that have been made. To save you some time though, here are the three main things to note:

The reader character does not have the bonds

The reader character refers to Arthur by his last name due to unfamiliarity

The horniness from last chapter has been moved to a future chapter. sorry!

This chapter is also pretty long in comparison to the others. From here on out, the chapters will probably be 2000+ words.

———

You look out into the plains, at the last pale band of light disappearing beneath a horizon of prairie grass and dark, looming buttes. The shadows of the scant trees stretch long and thin, their branches like a thousand spindly fingers grasping, searching. The landscape is dimmed to a tableau of reds and blacks, anything not illuminated by the fire slowly sinking into the featureless canvas of night. All of it blurred and indistinct behind a curtain of rain.

It’s a prettier sight by far than any you’ve had in St Denis. Or San Francisco. Or anywhere else you’ve lived, really.

And yet it hangs like featureless gauze behind the endless reel playing out over and over behind your eyes, spinning round like the printed images on a zoetrope.

The O’Driscoll’s hands wet with blood and mud. His eyes wide and uncomprehending. Trying to put himself back together the way one might a broken toy, sieving his viscera between his fingers and scooping it into the cavity of his chest. That initial, stunned bemusement giving way at last to the dawning horror of his own end.

And accompanying it, the numb realization that what bothered you more was the bare abstraction of the act. The burden of this sin weighing heavy with all the others, its addition tipping some moral scale, and —

“Hey.”

Morgan’s voice, jarringly brusque against the murmurings of your own private judge and jury, is almost mercifully irritating.

“What do you want?” you snap.

“Get up,” he says. “Start strippin’ the wet bark off the firewood.”

“For chrissakes, at least give me a second to catch my breath.”

“Why, so you can keep sittin’ there feeling sorry for yourself?” He leans one hand against the stone wall of the outcrop and drags himself back to his feet. The barest shadow of a grimace flits across his face as he straightens his back. “C’mon. Sooner we get set up proper, the sooner we can get back to ignorin’ each other. Then you can sulk all night in peace.”

The cottonwood branches are covered in cracked, ash brown bark that scrapes rough against your palms and fingers, rasping the skin raw as you hold the wood firm for carving. One of the downsides of living easy for so many years, you suppose — all the protective calluses atrophy to nothing, and what remains becomes susceptible to old and familiar hurts. But habits run deeper than skin, and what the mind forgets the body keeps.

As you work your way through the firewood, Boadicea nickers and paws impatiently at the dirt.

“I’m sorry girl,” you hear Morgan say. “Been a hard day for us both.”

You snort contemptuously. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he unhooks the horse’s bridle and lifts away the saddle, then starts grooming her with a battered looking brush, brushing with quick, circular motions, going against the grain and fluffing up her coat to dry out her fur with a solicitous measure of care that seems wholly unfitting of a man of his temperament and occupation.

Boadicea makes a low, rumbly noise in the back of her throat that sounds almost like a purr. She dips her head down and chomps at the yellowed prairie grass lining the floor of the outcrop, tearing up mouthfuls with a sedate contentedness that makes you sorely wish you could share in her circumstances.

A sense of fatigue more complete than any you’ve ever felt before settles over you like heavy snow. For the moment, you feel blank and washed out, stripped bare of all pretense.

“Morgan,” you admit. “I don’t have the bonds.”

“Yeah,” he replies. “I know.” He unpacks his canvas roll and yanks free from it the saddle blanket of coarse, undyed wool, then unfurls it over the horse’s back, pulling it over her flank and adjusting the fit. “Figured as much before we left Strawberry.”

“Oh.” At this point, you haven’t even the energy to be surprised. “Huh.”

For a long while, the only sound is that of the knife scraping against bark and the intensifying patter of rain, fat droplets coming down hard and fast.

In a small voice, you ask him, “You’re not really gonna sell me to a brothel, are you?”

He scoffs. “What makes y’think that ?”

“Thought you seemed too… too decent to do something like that.”

“Me? Decent?” Morgan lets out a low, disbelieving whistle. “Thought you’d know better by now.”

He turns partway to face you. In the dim light of the fire only half of him is lit bright enough to see, the rest tapering sharp into dark silhouette. For the lapse of a heartbeat it’s as if all the irreverence and bravado has been ripped away like a sheet of paper, and underneath a viciousness, a suppressed violence that you’ve been too blind to see.

This whole time you’ve been treating him like a dog, when the teeth at your throat are those of a wolf.

Your mouth goes dry and your fingers tighten around the knife in your hand. You stare up at him like a deer caught in his sights — blind panic rising up in your chest and throat like cold water. You swallow hard and try to force it down so you can maintain at least a semblance of control.

“Mr. Morgan…?”

“You ain’t been half as scared of me as you should be,” he says. “holed up with a wanted man, nobody around for miles. Some of the men I’ve run with, they…”

He lets the sentence trail off, the implications clear enough without him saying so. Then he shakes his head, and there is a weariness in him, a kind of cynical exhaustion that ages him far beyond his years. “Girl,” he says. “You keep at this line of work, I guarantee you’ll be dead in a year.”

Morgan slicks his fingers through his wet hair to keep rainwater from dripping into his eyes, and you can see that the hangdog look is back on his face, all his suggested cruelty vanished like smoke. He shifts his attention back to the saddlebags. “No, I ain’t decent,” he continues. He pulls out a tin cup and the individual components of what looks to be a collapsible grill. “But I ain’t so far gone that I’d hurt a woman. Or sell one.”

“But you’d ransom one.”

“Figured it out, did you?” he says. “Thought you might.”

He sits back beside the fire and pieces the grill together, twists its winch tight and positions it over the fire. Then he fills the tin cup with water from the canteen and sets it atop to heat.

“If you don’t hurt women,” you say slowly, your right hand still holding the knife tight as a vise. “Then what’re you going to do to me when you find out I’m not worth ransoming?”

“Doubt that’s gonna be a problem.”

“Why not?”

“Had a brand new Mauser on ya. You know how much those things cost?”

Mentally, you kick yourself. Looks like begging the gunsmith to lend you the best pistol he had in stock has come back to bite you in the ass.

“The gun’s not mine,” you say quickly. “It’s a loan.”

“Those bloomers in your room were real silk. You gonna tell me those were a loan too?”

“You — my bloomers?! Why were you going through my bloomers, you fucking degen—”

Of all the things you’ve accused him of today, somehow this is the one that actually rankles him. “You think I like rummaging through women’s underwear? Had to go through ‘em to get to your billfold.”

You flush hard enough that even the tips of your ears feel hot. “I… I saved up for those bloomers. Not that I’d expect you to understand the importance of—

“That shirt’s custom tailored, ain’t it? Those boots, too. And that’s good leather right there. Far too good for your typical drug mule. Either you come from money, or you got rich friends.”

There’s not much you can rebut here. All you can manage is a lame, “You don’t even know who I am .”

“Got a friend not too far from here who’s plenty familiar with St Denis. He’ll know.” Morgan holds his hand out towards you. “Gimme that knife a second.”

The knife is the only scrap of protection you’ve managed to grab hold of through this entire ordeal. You squeeze its handle tight.

He lets out a short, impatient sigh. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it by now. So c’mere and hand it over.”

You’ve known men who take a certain vicious pleasure in abusing women. Merchants with cringing wives. Clients with kind faces who’d leave working girls battered and bruised. There’s usually a certain mien about them that sets you on edge and that Morgan, brusque as he is, thoroughly lacks.

You brush the wood shavings off your lap and approach him. When you reach his place beside the fire, he tilts his head upwards to meet your eyes, the look on his face calm and expectant. A self-assured confidence that you’ve seen many times before, in the guises of many different men. It sends a familiar shiver of resentment down your spine.

You could cut out his eye right now. You could sink the blade into the thick cord of his neck. And he’d shoot you dead just for trying it — oh, you’ve no doubt of that — but it’d be quick and it’d be painless, and here comes that pathetic urge again, that little whisper coaxing you deeper, deeper towards the welcoming dark —

But equally pathetic is the nagging insistence that always stays your hand, that strident, desperate plea born from bodily instinct. The shared fear of all life from the inevitable. Cowardice — that’s what it is. A cowardice you’ve never been able to shake, a resentful, stubborn tether that you’ve bitten and clawed at over the years, but that still stays looped firm around your neck.

( And what about Mei? What about her son? )

You hand him the knife, and he receives it without incident.

The water in the tin cup is boiling. Morgan slips the point of the knife through the cup’s metal handle, and delicately removes it from the grate to cool. As you stand there, wet and cold and resentful, but not sure what else to do, he saws the top off a can of beans and sets it on the grill to warm, then pulls something out of his satchel and tosses it in your direction.

Somehow, you manage to not fumble the catch. It’s a can of peaches.

“Don’t eat ‘em yet,” he says. “I wanna take a look at your arm first. Roll up your sleeve for me.”

You grimace. One of the pros of tailored shirts is having sleeves that actually fit. “It doesn’t roll up that far.”

“Then I’ll cut it off for you,” he says, putting the knife to the shoulder seam.

“Like hell you will. This is my last decent shirt.”

Morgan shrugs. “No way around it, unless you wanna take it off.”

A shirt nice enough to present a veneer of respectability costs at least $4. Your usual tailor’s fee runs about $2, plus tip. That’s $6 total: the equivalent of two week’s worth of food for Mei and her son. Good food — white rice and cabbage, maybe even a bit of pork belly. Not the bits of offal scrounged from the butcher and wilted produce she’d resort to otherwise.

You hold out your hand and say, “Give me something to cover myself with.”

Your time spent reading Ovid in college would have probably been better served learning to dress like him, you think to yourself as you try and try again to wrap Morgan’s blanket around yourself like a toga.

“I said I’d give you a minute to yourself,” he says. “It’s been more than three now. I’m gonna turn around.”

“Just ten more seconds,” you respond, hastily tucking the corner of the blanket into the horizontal swathe pulled taut across your torso.

The sheer amount of irritation he manages to convey in the sigh he lets out is really quite impressive. In it, you can somehow hear him rolling his eyes.

When you finally let him know you’re ready, he takes one look at you and has to stifle a laugh. “You could’ve just wrapped it around your chest. Woulda been more practical.”

“Oh, excuse me for wanting to preserve what’s left of my dignity,” you snap, keeping one arm pressed against your chest to keep the whole improvised garment from falling apart.

“Alright Caesar, c’mere. Let me see.”

The cut looks like an angry red furrow ploughed through the field of your skin. Its edges are ragged and torn, separated like poorly cut cloth. In between, the wound itself gleams red and raw, with particles and fibers mixed in with blood and indeterminate tissue.

Earlier, when you’d gingerly untied the makeshift bandage and taken off your shirt, you’d taken a silent moment to survey the damage, wondering with horrified fascination if it was perhaps your own muscle you were glimpsing, that particular facet of your body surfacing through its dermal barrier for the first time.

“I’m gonna hold your arm,” Morgan says. “That ok with you?”

You nod, a little dumbfounded that he of all people would have the foresight to ask for permission.

He lifts your arm towards the firelight so he can better examine the wound, and in doing so handles you with more care than you can remember any lover ever giving you. You tell yourself that it’s a rebuke of your own terrible taste than an indication of any extraordinary kindness on his part, then forcibly dredge up the memory of his gun at your back for good measure.

“You’re gonna have a hell of a scar after this,” he says, running his thumb along the unbroken skin below the cut. “No inflammation, which is good. I’ll patch you up the best I can, but we’re still gonna want to check on it every couple hours to make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

He gets up to rummage through his saddlebags and returns holding a roll of gauze and a bottle of clear liquid. “You’ll be wanting this,” he says, handing over the latter. “This’ll hurt.”

You take a swig and nearly choke on it. “What the hell is this?”

“Grain alcohol.”

Grimacing, you bring it to your lips again and take in two more mouthfuls of the stuff before handing it back, gulping it down quick to get the burn of it down your throat and off of your tongue.

Morgan hovers his hand over the tin cup to test its temperature. “This needs to cool down first. Gives you some time for that liquor to set in too.”

“I think it’s going to my head already,” you admit.

Heat is spreading from the warm pit of your stomach to your neck and face, branching through your veins as sure as blood. The thud of your heart, previously an imperceptible thing, now asserts itself like a metronome.

He glances over at you and whistles low. “Not much of a drinker, are you?”

“Not usually.” You press your palm against your cheek. “Am I turning red?”

“Gettin’ there.”

It’s strange, settling into this oddly comfortable limbo between cordiality and aggression. Your sustained caution of him is beginning to wane so steadily that you have to consciously remind yourself the only reason he hasn’t shot you dead or at least seriously injured you is due to the fact that you’re worth more intact than otherwise.

“So,” Morgan says. “What’s someone with silk bloomers doin’ all the way out here runnin’ opium to Strawberry?”

“It’s a very long and stupid story.”

“Then give me the short version.”

You stare at the ground as though it’ll offer you some way to condense the sordid affair of your life into a couple easy sentences. He’d asked the question with what sounded like genuine curiosity instead of interrogation, and for once you feel inclined to blurt out the whole of it, like a girl in confession.

You want to tell him about how small the missionaries had seemed when you’d waved at them through the train’s grime-smudged window, not knowing it’d be the last time. The tweed jacket tossed carelessly onto the floor, and the cool, smooth sheen of mahogany against your skin. Feng fishing you out from the dark water lapping at the docks. The money, the opium, the blood.

The sight of the Heartlands for the first time, its blue horizon impossibly vast.

“I owe someone a lot of money,” you say finally, fiddling with a piece of grass between your fingers, tearing into halves and halves and halves. “He said it was either this or the brothel.”

“And you chose this. Runnin’ dope to those poor bastards working the railroads.”

It’s not the first time you’ve heard this particular tone of voice. The kind that implies its speaker’s higher moral ground as it categorically condemns you. But coming from him makes its sting especially hard.

“I don’t force them to buy it,” you say hotly. “It’s not just me that’s at fault here.”

“You ever seen a dope addict? They ain’t got a goddamn choice —”

“Well, d’you know what the average lifespan of a Chinatown whore is?” You don’t bother waiting for a response before plummeting to the answer. “Two years. After that she’s either dead from syphilis or suicide. At least with the opium I’ll die out here in the open and not in some squalid closet of a room that smells like piss and men.”

The liquor is starting to hit hard , and a part of you is fiercely grateful for it. It’s been a long time since you’ve been given an excuse to scream out the inequities of your life to someone, and a man who’s holding you for ransom seems as good a target for your vitriol as any.

“You think that just ‘cause it’d be better for the greater good or some shit, they should get to fuck me over? Is that what you think?”

Morgan seems a little taken aback. “I didn’t say th—”

“I don’t give a shit about the addicts. I don’t give a shit who’s life I’m ruining, as long as it isn’t mine. I don’t… I don’t care about anyone else because I’m a terrible excuse for a human being. That’s what you want to hear me say, right?” At this point, you realize that you’ve transitioned into a hysterical rant, that you don’t properly mean half the things you’re saying, but saying it out loud feels good nonetheless, like sucking venom from a festering wound. “But people like you don’t get to tell me so. Because at least I don’t hold people at fucking gunpoint . I don’t rob banks or kidnap women or beat debtors. I’m not a fucking murderer like you—”

The last statement barely clears the air before the image of the dead O’Driscoll, sprawled across the ground with his belly torn open, flashes through your head. You immediately clap your hand over your mouth, as if doing so will let you swallow back your words.

“No,” Morgan says, “You ain’t a murderer. And that’s why you won’t last long.”

“Good,” you seethe. The hot sting of tears begins prickling again at the corners of your eyes. “I don’t want to.”

He raises his eyebrows and regards you with a vague, detached kind of pity that makes you almost wish he’d just outright condemn you instead, then touches his fingers to the tin cup. “Water’s cool enough now, I think.”

You feel like a petulant child who’s just thrown an ineffectual tantrum. Rendered self-conscious and obedient for the time being, you allow him to secure your elbow with his hand and begin irrigating the wound with warm water.

“Jesus fucking god,” you hiss. You reflexively try and jerk away, but he holds you still and tells you to stop squirming, his grip firm as iron.

It’s the worst pain you’ve felt in years. Like a lick of flame passing over your skin, echoing its progenitor again and again as he washes the cut with a series of short, measured trickles of water, flushing away the combined grime of dried blood, dust, and lint.

“You think this is bad,” he says, unscrewing the bottle of grain alcohol. “Wait’ll I sterilize it.”

If the water was flame, then the alcohol is a streak of molten lava, wet fire soaking through the wound in a rush of white-hot burning pain. You don’t scream — you let out a weak, choking sob so pathetic that you cover your mouth again in an attempt to stifle it.

But you’re a little drunk and your subconscious recognizes this as an excellent excuse to cry, and so it lets flood the tears you’ve kept stoppered up for hours now. You whimper, meet his eyes briefly, then start bawling.

Your crying before hadn’t seemed to bother him, but now he looks almost comically alarmed. He must think it’s the physical pain sending you into hysterics, because he starts trying to comfort you the same way he did Boadicea when he’d led her into the river.

“You’re doin’ good,” he says, cajoling you in a soft, affectionate voice. He sets the bottle of alcohol on the ground and pats you awkwardly on the shoulder. “Just a little more to go, and we’ll be done.”

Another agonizing, scorching splash of fire. He doesn’t chide you this time when you try to pull away.

“Shhhh… I know, I know. Hurts like a bitch, don’t it? I’m gonna give it one more rinse, and — yeah, there we go. You’re alright.”

Morgan wraps the bandage over your arm with deft, practiced fingers, and you wonder briefly how many times he’s had to do this for himself, with no one to soothe him. Though better that than the shoddy job you’d done on him six weeks ago, frantically patching him up with just the barest idea of what you were doing.

He ties off the bandage, then picks the can of peaches off the ground, pops open its metal lid with the tip of his knife and proffers it to you like a peace offering. “Here. You’re hungry, right?”

It’s very hard to cry and eat at the same time. You decide to concentrate on the latter.

After tapering your sobs down to a series of quiet, resentful sniffles, you begin gulping down mouthful after messy mouthful of sliced peach. It’s the first morsel of food you’ve had in over ten hours, and you wolf it down so quickly you hardly taste it. Just an impression of cloying sweetness mixed with something faintly aromatic (cinnamon, you think) lingering as an aftertaste.

The old instincts of hunger are hard to shake off. All decorum thoroughly discarded, you raise the can to your lips and drink down what syrup remains, tilting it nearly perpendicular to the ground to get at the last few drops.

“My god,” Morgan says. “I seen dogs with better manners.”

“If you’d fed me earlier, then I— what’re you doing.”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” he asks. He holds his bandolier in one hand. The other is working at his shirtcollar. “I’m gettin’ the hell outta these wet clothes.”

You clutch at the empty can of peaches as his union suit reveals itself in a revelation of blue. A blue which, you admit to yourself with an uncomfortable surge of appreciation, suits the shade of his eyes extremely well. But when he begins unbuckling his belt, you quickly avert your eyes. “Really?” you ask. The scandalization you probably ought to have felt from the very moment he’d begun undressing finally begins to surface. “Your pants, too?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m keepin’ the union suit on.”

“Are you usually this brazen with the women you kidnap?”

“D’you usually sit around half-naked with the men who kidnap you?” he asks, jabbing his thumb towards your own discarded shirt, which you’d spread out neatly beside the fire to dry.

“That’s different,” you hiss, knowing very well that it isn’t. “I had a medical reason.”

“Yeah, and so do I. I don’t wanna get pneumonia.”

He has a point. You look down at your own sodden trousers, which cling to your skin in a cold, wet embrace, and your internal scale of comfort versus propriety tips decidedly towards the former.

“Turn your back again,” you tell him.

“What for?”

“I’m gonna take my pants off too, and I don’t want you trying to sneak a peek at my bloomers.”

He laughs, then winces and gingerly splays his fingers across his ribs. It’s the first sign of real levity you’ve seen from him. “Oh, that is the last thing on my mind right now, girl.” There’s a tired grin on his face, and were it not for the events of the day, you might have almost found it endearing. “Besides, you ain’t hardly my type.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” you reply, a little offended. “Because I’m not interested in men with terrible taste.”

But he does as he’s told, and when you’re satisfied with the oblique angle of his range of sight, you let the borrowed blanket fall from your shoulders and pull the ribbon securing your braid free. You rake your fingers through your hair until it hangs loose, then gather the ends of it in one hand and twist it tight to wring out the rainwater. Only then do you pull the blanket back over your shoulders and begin to undress.

First, your boots. Then the knee-length woolen socks, which have left their cable-knit weave as an imprint on your skin. After glancing at him one more time to make sure his face is turned discreetly away, you unbuckle your belt and wriggle your way out of your trousers. It takes some maneuvering, and some thoroughly indecent posturing, to finally get them off. You leave your cotton bloomers on, figuring that the warmth of the fire will dry the thin material soon enough.

When you look back at Morgan, you find that he’s since turned back towards you. Not to gawk, but to get a better look at his own wounds in the firelight.

His union suit is half-unbuttoned. Most of his bare chest is visible, and along with it, the bruises from the ricocheted bullet. A mottle of blue and violet, like a spill of ink that radiates from the negative imprint of the flask that took the impact in his place. And right below it, a glimpse of your own handiwork.

When you’d first found him, the cut had spanned diagonal across his torso, trailing shallow from his chest and biting deep near the ridge of his hip. Most of it’s healed over since, but the edges are angry and inflamed still, and you can see the fading marks of your inexpert stitches laid like railroad tracks over the land of his skin.

“Don’t worry, I ain’t looked at you,” Morgan says. He probes gently at an indigo patch and inhales sharply. “Too busy lickin’ my own wounds.”

If you look closer, you can see the remnants of multiple scuffs and scratches. A history of violence storied across his body, told in the pale lettering of scars, many of them recent. An unwelcome pang of guilt settles itself low in your belly. It looks like he’s been on the road for a while, healing sporadically through long stretches of hard journeying. Hard journeying made worse, no doubt, by your theft of his bonds.

“You… uh. You want me to keep carving off wet bark?”

“Nah,” he says distractedly, still trying to determine the depth of the damage left behind. “Should be fine leavin’ the rest of it to dry out by the fire.”

You draw the blanket tighter around your shoulders, then root around your head for something, anything to talk about. Anything to get this burgeoning sympathy for Arthur Morgan out of your head.

“Your friend in St Denis,” you say finally. “He’s not gonna know much about me if he doesn’t speak Chinese.”

Morgan absentmindedly scratches his chin as he begins buttoning his union suit back up. “Wouldn’t put it past him. I know he’s had dealings with ‘em in the past.”

Something clicks in the back of your head. Long overdue recognition like puzzle pieces fitting together. “What’s his name?”

“Josiah,” he says.

“Josiah,” you echo. The spark of some fit of emotion is beginning to rise in your throat. “Josiah… Trelawney?”

His bewildered face is enough to confirm your suspicions. Relief, anger, confusion — all of them flood you at once with such intensity that you have to take a moment to squeeze your eyes shut. When you open them, you take a deep breath and swallow hard. “Josiah Trelawney’s the son of a bitch I sold your bonds to.”

———

Massive thanks to @reddeaddufus for editing not only this chapter, but the entirety of this fic. This whole thing would be a lot more disjointed if it weren't for her.

Definitely give her fic Red Dead Pursuit a look. The main character is extremely compelling, the plot is fast-paced, and the porn is A+. Her writing style is also a delight to read.

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan/reader #arthur morgan/oc #fic #red dead redemption #rdr2 #my work #talking bird

[thebluelemontree]

We know Sansa has a connection to the Seven through her wishes, but do you think the same could be said of the Old Gods? Also, do you see magic in her future storyline like the rest of her siblings? Thank you!

Of course, she has a connection to the Old Gods too. GRRM confirmed all the Stark children are wargs, even if Sansa’s abilities didn’t have the chance to manifest at the same time as her siblings since she lost Lady so quickly. Skin changing was already inherently in her and still is. It’s just that the ability is dormant for the most part. The connection between Sansa and Lady never weakened either. I already wrote about this here a while back, and it may have to do with Lady’s bones and hide being interred in Winterfell. She still longs for her, dreams of her, and even feels her direwolf’s presence close by sometimes. I don’t think she’s aged-out (if that’s possible) of ever skin changing an animal since she’s still younger than Robb and Jon when they received their direwolf pups. 

Sansa was also bonding with the old blind dog on the Fingers, but their time together was also cut short. Dogs are the easiest to skin change according the Varamyr prologue, so in theory Sansa could have started to have “dog dreams” if she’d stayed in physical contact with the dog. Her time in the Vale has had her separated from animals, but that doesn’t mean it will always be so. There’s always the possibility of skin changing a bird like a falcon perhaps.  

And ya know, she does have a greenseer little brother that she was always close to that might be able to help her grow her magical side. Maybe even break in an animal for her to make it easier to slip into perhaps? That’s a thing.  

Slipping into Summer's skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. "A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly." -- Bran III, ADWD.

I don’t see any evidence that the door is permanently shut on her skin changing something eventually. 

But if you mean does she have a connection to the Old Gods through prayer, the answer is yes too.

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." -- Eddard V, AGOT.

It might be something that Sansa dreams of her greenseer brother in the godswood after they’ve received word of Bran awakening from the coma where his own third-eye was opened by the three-eyed crow. If this scene isn’t a glimpse of the future in ADOS, I’ll eat my hat. 

Sansa is a person of faith who observes both her religions, albeit for a time she favored the aesthetics of her mother’s faith more than her father’s.  

She prayed in both the sept and the godswood for her father, unfortunately to no avail on that one. In the crisis of her captivity, she makes more space for the Old Gods in her religiosity.   

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.

Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . . -- Sansa II, ACOK.

I don’t think Sansa ever really turns away from her belief in the Seven to embrace the Old Gods as much as some claim. It’s the Seven she prays to during the Blackwater and the Mother she invokes when she sings for Sandor Clegane. She wants to light candles in the sept to ask the gods to protect Margaery and Loras. It’s more that she’s disillusioned with some of the earthly institutions and that causes a momentary flash of anger at the gods for (in her mind) never hearing her prayers. 

When she’s in the Eyrie, a place devoid of spiritual connection or comfort, Sansa feels the pain of loss of both her religions.

It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. -- Sansa VII, ASOS.

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. -- Sansa II, AFFC.   

During this period of time, Sansa’s faith has taken a real beating from being manipulated and coerced into being a part of Littlefinger’s crimes. Cynicism and corruption appear to be winning for the time being as Littlefinger rises and succeeds in the Vale. The presence of spirituality in her inner dialogue has grown ever more faint and weary; however, as I’ve shown above, a restoration of faith is likely as she progresses toward Winterfell and reuniting with her siblings. Does that mean she will begin to embrace the Old Gods (and magic) and to let go of the Faith of the Seven? Maybe, we have to wait and see. Or it’s possible she expands her consciousness to accept more of both in her life. 

Martin is a lapsed Catholic and atheist himself, but he never treats Catelyn or Sansa’s religiosity with the Seven as a joke or as less than religions that have demonstrable magic attached to them. I think it helps to keep in mind GRRM’s position on the nature of the relationship between characters, religion, and magic:

“Well, the readers are certainly free to wonder about the validity of these religions, the truth of these religions, and the teachings of these religions. I'm a little leery of the word "true" — whether any of these religions are more true than others. I mean, look at the analogue of our real world. We have many religions too. Are some of them more true than others? I don't think any gods are likely to be showing up in Westeros, any more than they already do. We're not going to have one appearing, deus ex machina, to affect the outcomes of things, no matter how hard anyone prays. So the relation between the religions and the various magics that some people have here is something that the reader can try to puzzle out.”

#valyrianscrolls #sansa stark meta #sansa stark #religion in asoiaf #the old gods #the faith of the seven #warging #skin changing #septs #godswoods #Lady #direwolf #magic in asoiaf #my meta #anonymous

[septembercfawkes]

Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Don't Use 'Was'"

Over my years editing, I've seen stories that were crippled from the author's quest to avoid "was." 

A common piece of writing advice is to avoid using "was" or any "to-be" word in your writing. But most professionals use them in their writing--so what gives? Over my years editing, I've seen stories that were crippled from the author's quest to avoid using "was," and I knew I needed to do a post on it.

Here is the "was" rule, why it's a rule, and why you (probably) shouldn't follow it religiously--with some of the most common problems I see in avoiding it.

What's the Rule

Writers, particularly beginning writers, or any writer starting to work on their style specifically, will

probably be told, "Don't us 'was!'" Sometimes this is told vehemently. And with good reason. Beginning writers usually way overuse was. Their work might read something like this:

Malinda saw that there was a beautiful sunrise outside her window. The color was an early-morning yellow-orange color, and there were smooth clouds. A sunbeam was going through a cloud to the east. Most of the sun was still hiding behind the hill. Half of it was concealed, like it was just waking. It was so peaceful outside. Birds were chirping. Malinda imagined that critters were wandering down to the river to get a drink. She was happy she noticed this beautiful morning.

Why it's a Rule

Using "was" so much makes fiction writing sound weak.

It makes it monotonous. Sometimes writers put it in where it can be axed completely. But most importantly, it robs the passage of having strong verbs.

Strong verbs are often specific, but I know one thing for sure about them--they are never "was."

Strong verbs = strong writing

Strong verbs bring specificity to the tale. They help draw the reader in.

As some writers will point out, "was" doesn't actually tell us anything. It's simply saying that something is existing. In a way, it's meaningless.

Look how this same passage changes by taking out every "to-be" verb:

Malinda saw a beautiful sunrise outside her window. The sky's color, an early-morning yellow-orange, complemented its smooth clouds. A sunbeam pierced through a cloud in the east. Half the sun still hid behind the hill, as if just waking. The entire outside emanated peace. Birds chirped. Malinda imagined critters wandering down to the river to get a drink. She smiled and soaked in the beautiful morning.

To be fair, this paragraph could use some more work to be taken to a higher level, but it's still a stronger piece of writing than the first one. Notice some of the particularly strong (specific) verbs used: "pierced," "emanated," "chirped," "soaked."

Now, side note for those wanting to get more advanced. The strong verbs you use help establish a tone. So "pierced" may not be the best option to use when capturing something beautiful. People don't usually associate things that have been pierced with "beautiful." However, this isn't the sort of thing that will make or break you and your readership, just something to consider when you want to drive home an image or tone.

Another reason "was" is a problem is because it's often used in telling, not showing:

Malinda was happy.

This is a "telling" sentence, because we can't "see" happy. It's a vague label. Often new writers pair "was" with telling or vague adjectives.

A third reason "was" is a problem is that often new writers use it because they are writing in passive voice.

Passive voice happens when the object of the sentence becomes the subject.

Active voice: I gave blood --> I(subject) gave(verb) blood(object)

vs

Passive voice: Blood was given by me.

Passive voice requires that there be a to-be verb in it. Passive voice also leads to weak writing.

A beautiful sunrise was seen by Malinda. To the east, a cloud was pierced by a sunbeam. Chirping was coming from birds. Critters wandering down to the river were imagined by Malinda. The beautiful morning was noticed by Malinda.

There are cases where passive voice is absolutely acceptable, but most of the time you don't want it.

Some people get confused and think any sentence that has a to-be verb is a passive sentence. That is not the case. Passive voice and active voice are strictly defined by sentence structure.

So it boils down to this:

To-be verb problems: weak writing, telling writing, passive writing

How (and How Not) to Follow the Rule

Sometimes authors try to avoid using "was," and they don't quite pull it off. There are correct and incorrect ways to master this rule.

How to (Correct)

As I showed above, one of the ways to avoid "was" is to switch it out for a strong verb.

A sunbeam was going through a cloud. --> A sunbeam pierced a cloud.

Use an appositive. If you aren't familiar with appositives, review this very short article explaining them at Purdue Owl. Appositives are a noun or pronoun that works as a modifier of another noun.

The color was an early-morning yellow-orange color, and there were smooth clouds. --> The sky's color, an early-morning yellow-orange (appositive), complemented the smooth clouds.

* Note - when you use an appositive, you need to make sure you still have a verb in the sentence, and one that makes sense. To test, try taking out the appositive to see if it still makes sense as a sentence:

The sky's color complemented the smooth clouds.

This checks out as a complete sentence and makes sense, so we are good.

Switch passive voice for active voice.

A cloud was pierced by a sunbeam. --> A sunbeam pierced a cloud.

In some cases, you switch out telling for a showing action (verb).

She was happy. --> She smiled.

People smile when they are happy, so "smiled" does the job.

How Not to (Incorrect)

Do not take out the to-be verb without making sure there is another verb (or replacement verb) for the subject of the sentence (or, more accurately, of the independent clause).

The color was an early-morning yellow-orange color. --> The color an early-morning yellow-orange color. (incorrect)

The color was an early-morning yellow-orange color (independent clause), and there were smooth clouds (independent clause). --> The color an early-morning yellow-orange color, and there were smooth clouds. (incorrect)

*Note - intentional stylistic sentence fragments (or independent clause fragments?) are okay from time to time, but should not be frequently used simply because you are avoiding to-be verbs.

Do not simply repeatedly (and frequently) exchange "was" for another similar word, such as "had," "seemed," "appeared," or "existed."

It was so peaceful outside. --> It appeared so peaceful outside. (not great)

She was happy. --> She seemed happy. (not great)

The color was an early-morning yellow-orange color. --> The sky had an early-morning yellow-orange color. (not great)

It was so peaceful outside. --> Peace existed outside. (not great)

*Note - It's okay to do this on occasion and some cases call for it, but I've seen some stories where this is pretty much the only way the writer avoids the to-be verbs. That's not really any better than having to-be verbs because it doesn't really fix the problems to-be verbs bring. Also, all the had's, appeared's, and exist's can get very repetitious.

Do not avoid "was" by combining too many ideas into a single sentence (this usually appears as someone getting appositive- or modifier-happy . . . or as a really long sentence).

Malinda saw a beautiful sunrise outside, the color an early-morning yellow-orange shade with smooth clouds and a sunbeam going through one in the east while its source still hid behind the hill, which made it look like it had just woken up. Peace existed in the image as birds chirped high in the trees, which had willowy branches, some with new leaf-buds beginning to grow like little peanuts that Malinda's little brother had strung up in his creative hour, where he often got brain fog like an elderly patient with dementia in a rest home stuck only with Crayola crayons, but Malinda smiled as she imagined critters, rabbits with white tails that stuck out like cotton from cottonwoods that grew wild yet uniform, similar to an orchard she had spent much of her childhood in, daydreaming about her future husband, and muskrats wandering down to the river to drink while Melinda took in the beautiful morning.

* It's absolutely possible to pull off a long sentence with a lot of appositives and modifiers, but if you have too many with modifiers upon modifiers and a bunch of different concepts thrown together it can become a nightmare. I can usually tell when someone is doing it because they want to or because they are trying too hard to avoid "was."

When to Break the Rule

Use to-be verbs in dialogue

This may be clear to some people, but because the "never use 'was'" rule gets referred to so much and so vehemently, sometimes new writers get confused and try to take it out of their dialogue. This results in wonky and usually unrealistic dialogue.

No:

"The sky's color, an early-morning yellow-orange, really complemented its smooth clouds. And a sunbeam pierced through a cloud in the east. It appeared beautiful," Melinda said.

Yes:

"Did you see the sunrise this morning? It was beautiful. The sky had this early-morning yellow-orange color, and it was so pretty against the clouds," Melinda said.

Use to-be verbs in deeper points in viewpoint penetration. The deeper you get into your character's viewpoint, the more it resembles dialogue (but with one person--the character's self). Don't be afraid to use to-be verbs. In fact, you should. As I noted in my article on viewpoint penetration, humans think in "telling" sentences. The character's thoughts should mirror speech.

Often you will see first person stories use "was" regularly. This is because it is being told from that character's viewpoint.

Use to-be verbs to create emphasis and focus.

I've talked about this a few times on my blog, but certain areas in sentence structures carry more emphasis than others. Joseph M. Williams's book Style has a whole chapter dedicated to emphasizing words and phrases by altering sentence structure. The part of the sentence that carries the most potential emphasis is the last word.

Remember that naughty to-be phrase your English teacher told you not to use, "There are/is/were/was"? Because it doesn't actually tell us anything? Well, it's a great tool to push a word you want to a sentence's end for emphasis. Let's say that I want to emphasize the word "cows" and in the context of my scene, it'll add humor (because of the build up before). I could write, "Some cows grazed in the pasture," but that probably won't get a laugh out of my reader--there's no emphasis. It would be better to write, "There were cows." Also, the simplicity and invisibility of "There were" keeps the whole sentence's focus (in other words more emphasis) on "cows." The reader's attention isn't being divided between "cows," "grazed," and "pasture."

Passive voice (another naughty thing) can do the same thing. It can move the emphasis onto the word you want. Likewise, it uses boring weak words that won't detract from the word you want to emphasize.

When you want a particular emphasis, "was," may be just the word you need.

And when you want complete focus on a word, you might want to use the boring "was" to keep the whole sentence-focus on your word of choice.

Use to-be verbs to tone down overpowering styles

Every once in a while I run into a writer who is a master at writing in a gorgeous, specific, maybe even literary, style. Every sentence is rich with ideas and descriptions. Every sentence is packed full of beautiful words.

But every once in a while, it gets to be too much. It's not purple prose--not at all. It's just too gorgeous and rich, sentence upon sentence upon sentence. Throwing in a "was" sentence here and there can help tone it down and make it easier on the reader. You know how some desserts are so rich you can only eat a few bites? That's how this style is, and if it's present in a long passage or book, it can be almost too much for the reader to get through. A "was" sentence can help balance that.

Use to-be verbs for easy "digestion" and easy reading

Along those same lines, but slightly different, is what I think of as "reader's digestion." How easy is it for the reader to take in and digest what a passage is saying? In the style mentioned above, it may be so rich that the average reader can't digest it very fast. It may slow down their reading. And it does slow down the story's pacing (which isn't necessarily bad). Using a few "was" sentences will help with digestion.

Likewise, some ideas and concepts are complicated to take in cognitively, in and of themselves, simply because of subject matter. If you are trying to explain physics to your reader in your sci-fi book, getting all fancy in how you do it and packing your sentences full of info so that you avoid to-be verbs, is going to make it more difficult for your reader to follow and understand (and "digest") then breaking it down into short, clear sentences that use "was."

When dealing with these complicated subject matters, we as human beings like the familiar words and ideas to be at the beginning of the sentence and the new or complicated stuff at the end of the sentence. Again, one way to help do this is to use "was."

As long as you don't overuse it, the "was" sentence makes for easy reading. It becomes blah when it's used frequently with other blah words: Melinda was happy. The ice was cold.

When it's paired with complicated ideas or words, it can be perfect.

And there you have it. Everything you need to know about using or not using to-be verbs in fiction writing.

#writing #writer #writing tip #writing help #writing tips #writing helps #fanfic #fanfiction #writing tips and tricks #writblr #writerblr #writing reference #writing advice #writing references #writing lesson #writing lessons #creative writing #fiction writing

[lizshine74]

The Bean Trees By Barbara Kingsolver

Year 2 of MFA. Critical Paper #3

I digress. I do. And, I like to. I have long loved writers who lead me through a story without predictability, who take tangents, who comment on and make connections to phenomena and ideas beyond the scene. I like to take a good metaphor and sit with it over coffee. So, when I began to follow the string of Barbara Kingsolver’s words through her novel The Bean Trees, my stomach growled. The beans on Mattie’s trees may be purple, but there is nothing purple about the prose in this book. Taylor is a straight-talking first person narrator who spends most of her words laying out the scene for us. Her comments are spare, but powerful, her comparisons modest and real. She describes the people in each scene vividly. All of this makes perfect sense. Taylor is strong, observant, and practical. In this second draft of the novel I am working on now, one of my primary concerns is to expand each existing scene and to include more scenes, to create more space between commentary and digression, to make the scenes themselves more sustained, textured, and resonating. The Bean Trees reads as a succession of scenes connected by a sentence or two here and there of the narrator’s commentary. I truly felt that the writer had stepped away from the text and let Taylor tell the tale. She doesn’t dwell or explain, she just says, oh that’s sort of funny or I thought that was dumb and moves on to the next scene. The readers are left to make significance or not of Taylor’s commentaries. Here’s a short scene that involves most of the novel’s primary characters: “Taylor, no! You mustn’t.” Lou Ann said. “For heaven’s sake, Lou Ann. I’ve got on decent underwear.” “No, what I mean is, you’re not supposed to go in for an hour after you eat. You’ll drown, both of you. It’s something about the food in your stomach that makes you sink.” “I know I can depend on you, Lou Ann,” I said. “If we sink, you’ll pull us out. “ I held my nose and jumped in. The water was so cold I couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t just stayed frozen up there on the snow-topped mountain. The two of us caught our breath and whooped and splashed the others until Lou Ann was threatening our lives. Mattie, more inclined to the direct approach, was throwing rocks the size of potatoes… Estevan went from whooping to singing in Spanish, hamming it up in this amazing yodely voice. He dog-paddled over to Esperanza and rested his chin on the rock by her feet, still singing, his head moving up and down with the words. What kind of words, it was easy to guess: “My sweet nightingale, my rose, your eyes like the stars.” He was unbelievably handsome, with this smile that could crack your heart right down the middle. But she was off on her own somewhere. From time to time she would gaze over to where the kids were asleep on the blue bedspread. And who could blame her, really? It was a sweet sight. With the cottonwood shade rippling over them they looked like a drawing from one of those old-fashioned children’s books that show babies in underwater scenes, blowing glassy bubbles and holding on to fishes’ tails. Dwayne Ray had on a huge white sailor hat and had nodded forward in his car seat, but Turtle’s mouth was open to the sky. Her hair was damp and plastered down in dark cords on her temples, showing more of her forehead than usual. Even from a distance I could see her eyes dancing around under eyelids as thin as white grape skins. Turtle always had desperate, active dreams. In sleep, it seemed, she was free to do all the things that during her waking life she could only watch. (94-95) Notice the economic use of dialogue, the attention to character description, and the focus and attention on the setting. There is so much to be seen here beyond the scene. There is contrast between Taylor who wants to drink in freedom in large gulps and Lou Ann who is frozen by fear, and we see this as the two exist side by side in scene after scene. There is conflict in this contrast. How will these two continue to live together in peace? There is contrast between Estevan and Esperanza here and each time we see them. Estevan is content with the love they share. Esperanza is wanting something more. There is the presence of Turtle, who the reader just knows is going to come out of her shell one day (all based on physical description) and we are anxious to know who will emerge when she begins to talk, what might come of those “desperate, active dreams.” Each detail in the scene is economical, has resonance beyond the scene. As I look back over the novel now, this is consistently true. Kingsolver has a clear thematic agenda in this book and it reads as awfully “political”on the issue of gender, but her writing is pure. She stays true to the story and its themes. Though I read the first half craving more literary antics, I did finish the book with some lessons from Taylor, who sees things, sees things quite clearly.

Buy my books here. 

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?Find free resources and information here.Some past posts to keep you making time: Adjust your pace accordingly.It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routineThere are things you will have to give upSee it to achieve itWashing the dishesWrite slowlyA celebration of the pauseMonday, a run through the driving rainZen accidentGet out of your comfort zone

The Bean Trees By Barbara Kingsolver was originally published on Make Time.

[strayplots]

Dialogue Prompt 19

“You could literally fucking make a shirt out of the cotton.”

#strayplots #story prompt #shirt #clothing #cotton #things i hear at college #tw swearing #the guy was talking about cottonwood trees #just so you know #1 person #dialogue

[sciencemuseumva]

Can we create a new way to help power our world?

The global energy dialogue is easily one of the most important conversations happening right now. Our planet is home to over seven billion people and population growth shows no signs of slowing down. How will we provide power to all of these people without jeopardizing our environmental and economic landscapes? Can we create a new way to help power our world?

Discovering new methods of providing power will require some creative work by technology innovators. Humanity has often looked to nature as an inspiration for creative technology. Birds were the inspiration for our flying machines, the human eye helped design the camera, sticky plants were the muse for Velcro, and now scientists are looking at trees to help invent new ways of powering our world.

In the past, we’ve seen news headlines about using a light harvesting antenna attached to bio-engineered trees that harvest power for our daily needs using photosynthesis. There are also lots of examples of using turbines in rivers or spinning in the air to generate power too. A bold new idea was recently introduced that involves a few of these notions working together. The inspiration for this power source came from the leaves of cottonwood trees. A piezoelectric tree was introduced as a potential way of harnessing the wind to generate electricity.

When the wind blows, it would move specially created artificial leaves. This motion would allow for the specially designed strips in these leaves to release an electrical charge. Piezoelectric technology essentially turns the energy of motion into electric power. The structure itself loosely resembles a tree, a base stick with small branches extending outwards. Each branch holds a few of these piezoelectric leaves and would be able to take the energy created from the wind moving the leaves to produce usable electric energy, thanks to some well engineered nanotechnology in the artificial tree itself.

If this piece of technology gets implemented in the world, we could come up with a lot of places to hold these trees. Phone poles could have arms that extend outward letting these energy generating leaves create power using the wind. Cell towers, tall buildings, balconies, backyards, and several other places could host these structures. Perhaps the design itself could be reconfigured into artistic sculptures someday as well.

Regardless, for now this is a very welcome invention and yet another great conversation piece for the global energy dialogue. More testing will continue, but look for this technology to become more and more common in the news. Individuals working in the renewable energy field are working every day to branch out and bring more creative options to the table. This piezoelectric tree is a great new innovation and could lead to a lot of great changes in power production for our growing planet. After all, the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

#science #Science Museum of Virginia #stem #question your world #energy #power #electricity #renewable #sustainable #wind #trees #leaves #photosynthesis #piezoelectric #kinetic energy #physics #engineering #environment #environmental science #technology #innovation #bio-engineering #nanotechnology #nature #population

[miamibeerscene]

A Beer Lover’s Guide to Albuquerque’s Wells Park Breweries

Bow and Arrow Brewing in Albuquerque’s Wells Park neighborhood. (Credit: Efrain Villa)

April 13, 2017

The landscape in Albuquerque, New Mexico, does not prostrate to subtlety. Ten-thousand-foot peaks rise high above the urban valley’s east side, petroglyph-etched volcanoes flank the city to the west while the Rio Grande Bosque, a lush strip of cottonwood forest, lines the oldest neighborhoods in town.

With a setting this striking, it makes sense Albuquerqueans (Burqueños, if you’re in the know) would also have a flare for the dramatic.

(MORE: 10 April Fool’s Day Pranks from Breweries)

“Albuquerque is a place of bold people, colors and flavors,” says Jesse Herron, a local entrepreneur whose company, Albuquerque Tourism & Sightseeing Factory, offers various city tours, including a craft beer excursion aboard a 14-passenger bicycle. “We like our food spicy and flavorful, and so it’s obvious for our craft beers to reflect our bold character.”

However, that boldness is not always on showy display. Hidden within former warehouses along defunct railroad spurs and retired machinery, edgy breweries share real estate with maker spaces in the industrial neighborhood of Wells Park, which abuts downtown and the city’s original settlement, Old Town.

“Downtown and Old Town get all the attention from tourists,” says Herron. “But Wells Park’s breweries capture the understated spirit of today’s Albuquerque.”

Here’s our walkable guide to Wells Park’s breweries.

Bow and Arrow Brewing Company

Bow and Arrow opened its doors in February 2016 after years of planning.

“I had to jump through extra zoning hoops to locate here,” says Shyla Sheppard, owner and CEO. “I was committed, though, because it was also an investment in my own neighborhood.”

Built in the former Chaparral Electrical Warehouse, the award-winning architectural design elements of this brewery and taproom meld the industrial vibe of the neighborhood with the earthy tones and textures of the Southwest.

Upon entering, you walk through a short corridor with a series of windows into the brewery that progressively widen as you near the cavernous tasting room. “We’ve created a sense of anticipation with those glimpses into production because we want to foster appreciation for our craft,” says Sheppard.

During happy hour (Monday-Thursday, 3-6 p.m.), the suit-and-tie crowd from nearby downtown can be found mingling at the long tables underneath rustic chandeliers. There is also an upstairs area, complete with a kitchen, available for private parties. Throughout the building, Native American themed art is displayed. The brewery’s logo itself is part hop cone, part arrowhead.

The nods to indigenous elements do not end with décor. A glance at the menu reveals names like Sun Dagger Belgian-style Saison and Hoka Hey India Pale Ale, “hoka hey” being a Hidatsa indigenous expression that translates to “get ready.” For some homegrown flavor, try the Flint & Grit English Mild Hybrid, an English ale hybridized with local roasted blue corn. There is also a kombucha/lager blend for unconventional palates.

(MAP: Find a Brewery)

Tractor Brewing Company

From Bow and Arrow, walk south on Sixth St. two blocks. Turn east on Haines Ave toward Fourth St. Head south on Fourth St. for half a block. Tractor Brewing Company is on the left.

This brewery began in 1999 in the nearby town of Los Lunas and relocated its entire 15-barrel operation, vintage tractors and all, to a vacant furniture showroom in Wells Park in 2014, after negotiations fell through to secure the then-empty site on which Rio Bravo Brewing Company now sits.

Tractor Brewing in Albuquerque’s Wells Park neighborhood. (Credit: Tractor Brewing)

The brewery is well known for its support of local arts organizations through its Beers for a Better Burque Program. Regular community events here include live music, poetry slams, open mic nights, movie nights and Art Fight, which is a live art competition. The monthly rotating artwork on the walls is from local artists and it is worth noting the brewery does not collect a commission from art sales.

“Community is a strong component of everything we do,” says Tim Torres, quality assurance manager. “Even our relationship with the food trucks is part of that. We get to solely focus on what we do best, brewing and serving beer, and they provide delicious food to our customers.”

As for the 24 beers on tap, Torres is especially proud of the Pilsner #15 and Milk Mustachio Stout, which he says is “full of flavor and character and people really like the visual density when we put it on nitro.”

A barrel-aged sour debuts in spring.

(MORE: Are Experimental Hops the Future of IPA?)

Rio Bravo Brewing Company

From Tractor, head two blocks east on Hannet Ave. to Second St. then head two blocks north. Rio Bravo Brewing Company is on the right.

Established in 2015 in a former Firestone Tires plant on a sprawling 14,000 sq. ft. site, almost half of this brewery and taproom is outdoor patio space. On warm days, the beer garden is bustling with people, but things get significantly sparser when temperatures drop.

The owners, Randy and Denise Baker, are serious about their motto: “Live Bold.” From the tournament-size shuffleboard to the enormous fans above the bar, nothing about this place is small.

“With the jelly jar lighting and rolled trusses, this place feels like a huge Post-World War II bunker and it’s definitely way bigger than we planned, but it works,” says Randy.

Going big was not without challenges. “We tried for days to scrape off all the old, green paint from the floors and finally gave up,” says Randy. “But people always compliment the green floors now. It also got us to recycle some green tables that a local restaurant, Dion’s Pizza, was getting rid of.”

Expect to find strong flavors on tap. The Level 3 is a nuke-strength hoppy IPA (7.5% ABV, 110 IBU) and the Grab ‘Em by the Putin Russian Imperial Stout boasts a sensational 13.5% ABV. For the less brawny, the Randy Shandy hits the spot. Also worth a taste is the popular Piñon Coffee Porter, a collaboration with the New Mexico Piñon Coffee Company.

(MORE: Estimated Blood Alcohol Content Calculator)

Dialogue Brewing

From Rio Bravo Brewing, Dialogue Brewing is a two-block straight shot south on First St. Created by artists, film-makers and restaurateurs, this six-month-old brewery and taproom is part Burning Man dreamscape, part industrial minimalist experiment.

Dialogue Brewing in Albuquerque’s Wells Park neighborhood. (Credit: Efrain Villa)

Virtually everything under this 1920s warehouse’s bowstring roof is handcrafted to be greater than the sum of its parts. White birch and bamboo elements contrast against metal panels, light projection mapping and local artists’ works. Even the bar stools are distinctive, created through CNC machining, which is a process that combines computers and woodworking.

Despite modern conveniences like USB charging outlets, you will not find a single television screen.

“We left TVs out and created this cool community space so people socialize,” says Ian Graham, head brewer. “We’ve even had lyra hoop and aerial silk performances because these days it’s not enough to just make good beer, you also have to look good doing it.”

Efficient use of the small footprint was imperative. The seven-barrel system’s fermenters create a wall that separates the production area from the taproom. Outside, a small patio is decked out with six towering Rebar “tree” sculptures that also provide group seating. The sculptures weigh more than 7,000 lbs. and were buried eight feet into the ground to structurally support the 40 feet that jut out aboveground. Plans are in place to add plants to the tops of the sculptures to complement the $8,000 worth of exotic and native species currently planted.

The place is a feast for the eyes. “There’s even a hidden sculpture of the Sandia Mountains underneath the bar,” says Graham. “Basically, our staff put their hearts and souls into every detail of this place. They’re amazing and everyone is Cicerone Certified so they can educate our customers.”

Of the 12 beers on tap, sours and German-style lagers are the specialties of the house. The Belgian Citrus IPA was the runner-up in the Specialty Category of the National IPA Challenge.

“It’s expensive to produce that style because the hops come in at the end so we have to use more, but it’s worth it,” says Graham.

(MORE: What is Craft Beer?)

Marble Brewery

From Dialogue, walk south on First St. five blocks to reach Marble Brewery. This is the oldest brewery in the neighborhood, and it is a badge of honor for locals to say they knew Marble “before it was cool.” It has won at least nine GABF medals since 2011.

The small, original taproom, rumored to have been behind the city’s first food truck/brewery collaborative model, has been completely gutted and now sports a rooftop deck, outdoor stage, heated patio and the Abuelo Goyo mural by Nuezz, which is likely the most Instagrammed wall in town.

On a hot summer evening, it is common to see a line of hipsters, baby boomers and multi-generational families eagerly waiting to get inside. The incongruous crowd of people is at the heart of Marble’s success; it is truly a brewery for everyone.

So grab a beer, they are all good here, and end your brewery tour where this neighborhood’s brewing history began.

Efraín VillaAuthor Website

Efraín is a photographer, actor, writer and global wanderer whose endless quest for randomness has taken him to more than 50 countries in five continents. His writing has appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition, the Good Men Project, TravelWorld International Magazine, Zymurgy, as well as Spanish language publications. While not running his consulting firm in Albuquerque, he is busy devouring exotic foods in faraway countries and avoiding adulthood while wearing the least amount of clothes possible. His travel stories dealing with the messiness, humor and beauty of cultural collisions can be found on his website: Aimless Vagabond Read more by this author

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