#harwin of the hollow hill | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mladyandthebastard-blog · 5 years

Note

Do you know meaning of this sentence "You won't be stealing no kisses from a princess" from book? Is it refered to gendry and arya? I don't understand. Sorry for my english.

Hey, Don’t apologise. Yes its from A Storm of Swords - Chapter 39 (Arya’s POV).

In this chapter Gendry pledges to the brotherhood without banners and is knighted. I couldn’t find the whole chapter but i found a small section.

“A smith can find a welcome most anywhere. A skilled armorer even more so. Why would you choose to stay with us?“

Arya watched Gendry screw up his stupid face, thinking. “At the hollow hill, what you said about being King Robert’s men, and brothers, I liked that. I liked that you gave the Hound a trial. Lord Bolton just hanged folk or took off their heads, and Lord Tywin and Ser Amory were the same. I’d sooner smith for you.”

“We got plenty of mail needs mending, m'lord,” Jack reminded Lord Beric. “Most we took off the dead, and there’s holes where the death came through.”

“You must be a lackwit, boy,” said Lem. “We’re outlaws. Lowborn scum, most of us, excepting his lordship. Don’t think it’ll be like Tom’s fool songs neither. You won’t be stealing no kisses from a princess, nor riding in no tourneys in stolen armor. You join us, you’ll end with your neck in a noose, or your head mounted up above some castle gate.”

“It’s no more than they’d do for you,” said Gendry.

“Aye, that’s so,” said Jack-Be-Lucky cheerfully. “The crows await us all. M'lord, the boy seems brave enough, and we do have need of what he brings us. Take him, says Jack.”

“And quick,” suggested Harwin, chuckling, “before the fever passes and he comes to his senses.” A wan smile crossed Lord Beric’s lips. “Thoros, my sword.”

This time the lightning lord did not set the blade afire, but merely laid it light on Gendry’s shoulder. “Gendry, do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children, to obey your captains, your liege lord, and your king, to fight bravely when needed and do such other tasks as are laid upon you, however hard or humble or dangerous they may be?”

“I do, m'lord.”

The marcher lord moved the sword from the right shoulder to the left, and said, “Arise Ser Gendry, knight of the hollow hill, and be welcome to our brotherhood.”

Lemoncloak is basically saying that living as a outlaw (criminal) isn’t like all the fairy tales, its going to be hard and you’ll most likely end up dead. Alot of old songs/stories about outlaws (For example Robin Hood), mention falling in love with a princess or a lady. Which in those times for a “lowborn” would be next to impossible, almost taboo. As far as it relating to Arya’s and Gendry’s Relationship there’s an argument for both sides.

You could say Lem is just warning him about the risks of living as a outlaw and trying to make sure this is something he really wants. He’s just simply saying its not all its made out to be, and not referring to Arya.

However in Chapter 22 of A Storm of Swords after the Acorn Hall scene, Arya and Gendry return to the main hall, everyone notices the state of Arya’s dress and this happens

Harwin took one look at them and burst out laughing, and Anguy smiled one of his stupid freckly smiles and said, “Are we certain this one is a highborn lady?” But Lem gave Gendry a clout alongside the head. “You want to fight, fight with me! She’s a girl, and half your age! You keep your hands off o’ her, you hear me?”

“I started it ” said Arya. “Gendry was just talking.”

“Leave the boy, Lem,” said Harwin. “Arya did start it, I have no doubt. She was much the same at Winterfell.”

In this scene Lem is clearly reminding Gendry that wrestling with Arya Stark is inappropriate, she’s a girl and half his age. He doesn’t mention Arya’s social status but i have the feeling like its implied. By saying this i feel like Lem is suggesting that the play fight has some sort of sexual/flirting undertones behind it.

Now if you go back to Chapter 39 you could argue he’s hinting to Gendry that joining the brotherhood won’t improve his social class, he won’t be able to kiss princesses or competing in competitions. He’ll still be lowborn and nothing will change.

Gendry is well aware of Arya’s status and the divide that this makes, this is made clear in the books.

In this scene (Chapter 34) Arya meets a young lord and they share a pleasant conversation, Gendry is clearly irritated by this.

Poor Ned seemed to grow more miserable with every mile. “When I wear my helm, the rain beats against the steel and gives me headaches,” he complained. “But when I take it off, my hair gets soaked and sticks to my face and in my mouth.”

“You have a knife,” Gendry suggested. “If your hair annoys you so much, shave your bloody head.”

He doesn’t like Ned. The squire seemed nice enough to Arya; maybe a little shy, but good- natured…

“You have a House?” That was stupid; he was a squire, of course he had a House. “Who are you?”

“My lady?” Ned looked embarrassed. “I’m Edric Dayne, the… the Lord of Starfall.”

Behind them, Gendry groaned. “Lords and ladies,” he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. Arya plucked a withered crabapple off a passing branch and whipped it at him, bouncing it off his thick bull head. “Ow,” he said. “That hurt.” He felt the skin above his eye. “What kind of lady throws crabapples at people?”

“The bad kind,” said Arya, suddenly contrite. She turned back to Ned. “I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were. My lord” …

“That’s not so. He loved my lady mother.”“I’m sure he did, my lady, but -”“She was the only one he loved.”“He must have found that bastard under a cabbage leaf, then,” Gendry said behind them.Arya wished she had another crabapple to bounce off his face. “My father had honor,” she said angrily. “And we weren’t talking to you anyway.

Also in the peach scene(Chapter 29). They are in a brothel and they both get a little jealous.

An old man sat down beside her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little peach?” His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down her. “Does my sweet peach have a name?”

For half a heartbeat she forgot who she was supposed to be. She wasn’t any peach, but she couldn’t be Arya Stark either, not here with some smelly drunk she did not know. “I’m…”

“She’s my sister.” Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Leave her be.”

The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry’s size he thought better of it. “Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I’d never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn’t.” He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend.

“Why did you say that?” Arya hopped to her feet. “You’re not my brother.”“That’s right,” he said angrily. “I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high.”Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. “That’s not the way I meant it.”“Yes it is.” He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. “Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I’ll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her.”

“But…”“I said, go away. M’lady.”Arya whirled and left him there. A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that’s all he is. He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her.

So maybe Gendry did try to change his social status to get closer to Arya by joining the brotherhood without banners, when he noticed the divide between them, and Lem was reminding him being a lowborn knight wouldn’t change anything. Sadly there is no Gendry POV so we can’t tell.

So does Lem’s quote refer to Arya and Gendry’s relationship? Yes. Am i grasping at straws? A little. However GRRM has an interesting way of writing and alot of the time he will leave breadcrumbs for us to follow, little hints that lead/hint to the bigger picture. I honestly do think it was a wink towards their relationship and some of Gendry’s intentions behind joining.

Hope you enjoyed my TED Talk

#arya x gendry #gendrya #arya stark #arya and gendry #gendry #gendry waters #gendry baratheon

199 notes · View notes

she-wolf-of-highgarden · 5 years

Text

All the times Arya mentions pack

“Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.” - Arya II, AGoT

“It's been a bad year for wolves," volunteered a sallow man in a travel-stained green cloak. "Around the Gods Eye, the packs have grown bolder'n anyone can remember. Sheep, cows, dogs, makes no matter, they kill as they like, and they got no fear of men. It's worth your life to go into those woods by night.” - Arya II, ACoK

“I heard the same thing from my cousin, and she's not the sort to lie," an old woman said. "She says there's this great pack, hundreds of them, mankillers. The one that leads them is a she-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell.” - Arya II, ACoK

“The man in the green cloak said, "I heard how this hellbitch walked into a village one day . . . a market day, people everywhere, and she walks in bold as you please and tears a baby from his mother's arms. When the tale reached Lord Mooton, him and his sons swore they'd put an end to her. They tracked her to her lair with a pack of wolfhounds, and barely escaped with their skins. Not one of those dogs came back, not one.” - Arya II, ACoK

“She was making water, her clothing tangled about her ankles, when she heard rustling from under the trees. Hot Pie, she thought in panic, he followed me. Then she saw the eyes shining out from the wood, bright with reflected moonlight. Her belly clenched tight as she grabbed for Needle, not caring if she pissed herself, counting eyes, two four eight twelve, a whole pack . . .” - Arya III, ACoK

“It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling." Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. "It's said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold.” - Arya X, ACoK

“For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said."But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan.” - Arya X, ACoK

“That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the godswood, she thought. They are calling to me.” - Arya X, ACoK

“From time to time she sent Hot Pie and Gendry on while she doubled back to try to confuse their trail, listening all the while for the first sign of pursuit. Too slow, she thought to herself, chewing her lip, we're going too slow, they'll catch us for certain. Once, from the crest of a ridge, she spied dark shapes crossing a stream in the valley behind them, and for half a heartbeat she feared that Roose Bolton's riders were on them, but when she looked again she realized they were only a pack of wolves. She cupped her hands around her mouth and howled down at them, "Ahooooooooo, ahooooooooo." When the largest of the wolves lifted its head and howled back, the sound made Arya shiver.” - Arya I, ASoS

“She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. If the Mummers catch us, I'll tell them that I'm Ned Stark's daughter and sister to the King in the North. I'll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry. They might not believe her, though, and even if they did . . . Lord Bolton was her brother's bannerman, but he frightened her all the same. I won't let them take us, she vowed silently, reaching back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of the sword that Gendry had stolen for her. I won't.” - Arya I, ASoS

“She was no little girl in the dream; she was a wolf, huge and powerful, and when she emerged from beneath the trees in front of them and bared her teeth in a low rumbling growl, she could smell the rank stench of fear from horse and man alike. The Lyseni's mount reared and screamed in terror, and the others shouted at one another in mantalk, but before they could act the other wolves came hurtling from the darkness and the rain, a great pack of them, gaunt and wet and silent.” - Arya I, ASoS

“She missed him more than she thought she would, but Harwin made up for it some. She had told him about his father Hullen, and how she'd found him dying by the stables in the Red Keep, the day she fled. "He always said he'd die in a stable," Harwin said, "but we all thought some bad-tempered stallion would be his death, not a pack of lions." Arya told of Yoren and their escape from King's Landing as well, and much that had happened since, but she left out the stableboy she'd stabbed with Needle, and the guard whose throat she'd cut to get out of Harrenhal. Telling Harwin would be almost like telling her father, and there were some things that she could not bear having her father know.” - Arya III, ASoS

“Lord Beric never shares his plans, but there's hunger down near Stoney Sept and the Threepenny Wood. I should look for him there." She took a sip of wine. "You'd best know, I've had less pleasant callers as well. A pack of wolves came howling around my gates, thinking I might have Jaime Lannister in here.” - Arya IV, ASoS

“She looked at their filthy hair and scraggly beards and reddened eyes, at their dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Robb's men? She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike. The old man had squeezed three fingers out between the bars. "Water," he said, "water.” - Arya V, ASoS

“Sleep came as quick as she closed her eyes. She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled.” - Arya V, ASoS

“Arya sat up yawning. Gendry was stirring on her left and Lem Lemoncloak snoring loudly to her right, but the baying outside all but drowned him out. There must be half a hundred dogs out there. She crawled from under the blankets and hopped over Lem, Tom, and Jack-Be-Lucky to the window. When she opened the shutters wide, wind and wet and cold all came flooding in together. The day was grey and overcast. Down below, in the square, the dogs were barking, running in circles, growling and howling. There was a pack of them, great black mastiffs and lean wolfhounds and black-and-white sheepdogs and kinds Arya did not know, shaggy brindled beasts with long yellow teeth. Between the inn and the fountain, a dozen riders sat astride their horses, watching the townsmen open the fat man's cage and tug his arm until his swollen corpse spilled out onto the ground. The dogs were at him at once, tearing chunks of flesh off his bones.” - Arya V, ASoS

“Outside the stables the rain was still falling, and distant lightning flashed in the west. Arya ran as fast as she could. She did not know where she was going, only that she wanted to be alone, away from all the voices, away from their hollow words and broken promises. All I wanted was to go to Riverrun. It was her own fault, for taking Gendry and Hot Pie with her when she left Harrenhal. She would have been better alone. If she had been alone, the outlaws would never have caught her, and she'd be with Robb and her mother by now. They were never my pack. If they had been, they wouldn't leave me. She splashed through a puddle of muddy water. Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning. The lightning lord, she thought angrily. Maybe he couldn't die, but he could lie.” - Arya VIII, ASoS

“And dreamed. That was the best part, the dreaming. She dreamed of wolves most every night. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. She was bigger than any of them, stronger, swifter, faster. She could outrun horses and outfight lions. When she bared her teeth even men would run from her, her belly was never empty long, and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold. And her brothers and sisters were with her, many and more of them, fierce and terrible and hers. They would never leave her.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream. Hot Pie and Gendry had left her just as soon as they could, and Lord Beric and the outlaws only wanted to ransom her, just like the Hound. None of them wanted her around. They were never my pack, not even Hot Pie and Gendry. I was stupid to think so, just a stupid little girl, and no wolf at all.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“The scent was stronger now. She pricked her ears up and listened to the grumbles of her pack, the shriek of angry crows, the whirr of wings and sound of running water. Somewhere far off she could hear horses and the calls of living men, but they were not what mattered. Only the scent mattered. She sniffed the air again. There it was, and now she saw it too, something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against a snag. The reeds bowed down before it.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“But when the pale dawn light came filtering through the trees, it was him who woke her with the toe of his boot. She had dreamed she was a wolf again, chasing a riderless horse up a hill with a pack behind her, but his foot brought her back just as they were closing for the kill.” - Arya XIII, ASoS

“I have no home, Arya thought. I have no pack. And now I don't even have a horse.” - Arya XIII, ASoS

“They are not my Seven. They were my mother's gods, and they let the Freys murder her at the Twins. She wondered whether she would find a godswood in Braavos, with a weirwood at its heart. Denyo might know, but she could not ask him. Salty was from Saltpans, and what would a girl from Saltpans know about the old gods of the north? The old gods are dead, she told herself, with Mother and Father and Robb and Bran and Rickon, all dead. A long time ago, she remembered her father saying that when the cold winds blow the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. He had it all backwards. Arya, the lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack had been taken and slain and skinned.” - Arya I, AFfC

“In the black of night she rose again, donned the clothes she'd worn from Westeros, and buckled on her swordbelt. Needle hung from one hip, her dagger from the other. With her floppy hat on her head, her fingerless gloves tucked into her belt, and her silver fork in one hand, she went stealing up the steps. There is no place here for Arya of House Stark, she was thinking. Arya's place was Winterfell, only Winterfell was gone. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. She had no pack, though. They had killed her pack, Ser Ilyn and Ser Meryn and the queen, and when she tried to make a new one all of them ran off, Hot Pie and Gendry and Yoren and Lommy Greenhands, even Harwin, who had been her father's man. She shoved through the doors, out into the night.” - Arya II, AFfC

“Arya heard much and more that night, but almost all of it was in the tongue of Braavos, and she hardly understood one word in ten. Still as stone, she told herself. The hardest part was struggling not to yawn. Before the night was done, her wits were wandering. Standing there with the flagon in her hands, she dreamed she was a wolf, running free through a moonlit forest with a great pack howling at her heels.” - Arya II, AFfC

“When they reached the broad straight waterway that was the Long Canal, they turned south for the fishmarket. Cat sat with her legs crossed, fighting a yawn and trying to recall the details of her dream. I dreamed I was a wolf again. She could remember the smells best of all: trees and earth, her pack brothers, the scents of horse and deer and man, each different from the others, and the sharp acrid tang of fear, always the same. Some nights the wolf dreams were so vivid that she could hear her brothers howling even as she woke, and once Brea had claimed that she was growling in her sleep as she thrashed beneath the covers. She thought that was some stupid lie till Talea said it too.” - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“The wolf dreams were the good ones. In the wolf dreams she was swift and strong, running down her prey with her pack at her heels. It was the other dream she hated, the one where she had two feet instead of four. In that one she was always looking for her mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire. It was always raining in that dream, and she could hear her mother screaming, but a monster with a dog's head would not let her go save her. In that dream she was always weeping, like a frightened little girl. Cats never weep, she told herself, no more than wolves do. It's just a stupid dream.” - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog.” - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“She opened her eyes and stared up blind at the black that shrouded her, her dream already fading. So beautiful. She licked her lips, remembering. The bleating of the sheep, the terror in the shepherd's eyes, the sound the dogs had made as she killed them one by one, the snarling of her pack. Game had become scarcer since the snows began to fall, but last night they had feasted. Lamb and dog and mutton and the flesh of man. Some of her little grey cousins were afraid of men, even dead men, but not her. Meat was meat, and men were prey. She was the night wolf. But only when she dreamed.” - The Blind Girl, ADwD

“Not for me. Her nights were bathed in moonlight and filled with the songs of her pack, with the taste of red meat torn off the bone, with the warm familiar smells of her grey cousins. Only during the days was she alone and blind.” - The Blind Girl, ADwD

“The smell of blood was heavy in her nostrils...or was that her nightmare, lingering? She had dreamed of wolves again, of running through some dark pine forest with a great pack at her heels, hard on the scent of prey.” - Mercy, TWoW

#Arya Stark #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf #game of thrones #got #the Night Wolf #the lone wolf dies but the pack survives #the pack survives

113 notes · View notes

ao3feed-gendrya · 5 years

Text

Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2VEtSnh

by VanillaMostly

“Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning.” -A Storm of Swords

Words: 977, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen

Characters: Gendry Waters

Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters

Additional Tags: POV Minor Character, Canon Compliant, Angst, Friendship/Love, getting pumped for GOT final season by rereading Gendrya book moments!!!

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2VEtSnh

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #gendrya #arya x gendry #axg

9 notes · View notes

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly · 7 years

Text

@i-just-like-commenting reblogged your post:

oh yes this reveal, and then on re-read you notice every time anyone prays in front of a godswood or has a strange dream under a weirwood tree and you start wondering how much is everything in this story being influenced by the weirwood network?!?

Seriously. Arya hearing her father’s voice when praying before the Harrenhal weirwood is... definitely something, and Theon hearing Bran at Winterfell is another. (I honestly can’t wait for Bran’s TWOW chapters when he reflects on that scene, not to mention the ravens he’s talking through in Theon’s first TWOW chapter.) But, like, I mean, just one thing that hardly anyone ever mentions:

Her eyes had grown accustomed to blackness. When Harwin pulled the hood off her head, the ruddy glare inside the hollow hill made Arya blink like some stupid owl. A huge firepit had been dug in the center of the earthen floor, and its flames rose swirling and crackling toward the smoke-stained ceiling. The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. People were emerging from between those roots as she watched; edging out from the shadows for a look at the captives, stepping from the mouths of pitch-black tunnels, popping out of crannies and crevices on all sides. In one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood. Lem unhooded Gendry. “What is this place?” he asked. “An old place, deep and secret. A refuge where neither wolves nor lions come prowling.”

--ASOS, Arya VI

The Brotherhood’s cave is full of weirwood roots. And Beric’s throne (so to speak), is right in the middle of them -- and isn’t that a weird echo, a one-eyed man (who deigns to wear a patch) in a nest of weirwood roots?

When Brienne takes Jaime back to the Brotherhood, back under the hollow hill, if something very odd doesn’t happen, I’ll be very surprised indeed.

(And that’s not even getting into how much ravens witness, how much Bloodraven could be watching...)

#i-just-like-commenting #asoiaf #weirwoods #the old gods #the brotherhood without banners #the hollow hill #beric dondarrion #bloodraven #bran stark #theon greyjoy #arya stark #brienne of tarth

80 notes · View notes

gendrie · 6 years

Text

Outside the stables the rain was still falling, and distant lightning flashed in the west. Arya ran as fast as she could. She did not know where she was going, only that she wanted to be alone, away from all the voices, away from their hollow words and broken promises. [...] Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning. "You're hurting me," she said, twisting in his grasp. "Let go, I was going to go back, I . . ." "Back?" Sandor Clegane's laughter was iron scraping over stone. "Bugger that, wolf girl. You're mine."

All the riders had their hoods up against the lashing rain, [...] "Gendry," she said in a low voice, "you'll want a sword, and armor. These are not your friends. They're no one's friends." "What are you talking about?" The boy came and stood beside her, his hammer in his hand. Lightning cracked to the south as the riders swung down off their horses. For half a heartbeat darkness turned to day. An axe gleamed silvery blue, light shimmered off mail and plate, and beneath the dark hood of the lead rider Brienne glimpsed an iron snout and rows of steel teeth, snarling. Gendry saw it too. "Him." The girl was shouting at the riders, but a clap of thunder rolled across the yard, drowning out her words.

also it always fucks me up how the night “”the hound”” shows up at the crossroads and gendry sees him is a night EXACTLY like the one where sandor kidnapped arya while gendry was in the rain and lightning and thunder looking for her - a night when he must’ve so scared because arya, his only friend, had been taken by this monster. so you know when gendry says “him” its so charged tbh. he’s thinking about arya and how much he misses her and how much it hurt when she disappeared and how he’d like to kill this guy for taking her.

#gendry #gendrya #asoiaf nonsense #cleaning out my drafts is therapy lol

98 notes · View notes

laurellerual · 1 year

Note

You have such great insights on Arya so I’m curious on how you think Gendry and her would reunite (hopefully in twow lol) I’d imagine it would be in the riverlands with the brotherhood but I don’t know how each would react to one another or how it might play out

Haha thank you so much. If you want to take a look, I drew this. Ok, let's speculate:

We don't yet know what will prompt Arya to return to Westeros, but whatever the cause, I believe she will try to return North. But she won't be able to find a ship that goes directly there because: "It would make no difference if you could, child. The North has nothing for us. Ice and war and pirates.” And none of those problems are going to be resolved anytime soon, so she might choose to take a ship that takes her further south to the Riverlands forcing her to retrace her steps.

Having landed near Saltpans the obvious route is to start traveling north following the course of the river to the Crossroads Inn and then take the King's Road from there. All roads lead to this inn, it's the easiest place for a traveler to find, and there is Gendry. I think he may be the first person she knows to meet upon her return to Westeros.

I would love if Gendry was the first friend to call her name in ages, it would be a very emotional scene. After all, he was the last person on page to address Arya by name (ASOS - Arya IV) before she left for Braavos. Next up is that heartbreaking scene where Arya hears someone screaming her name in the rain before being kidnapped by the Hound (ASOS-Arya VIII). She thinks it might be Harwin or Gendry, but “the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning” says Gendry to me.

Arya's reaction is the hardest to predict. It really depends on how the first chapters of TWOW go. I think a more mature Arya, while feeling hurt by his decision to stay with the Brotherhood, is fully able to understand his need for self-determination. She basically had no problem understanding Hot Pie's decision and she doesn't hate Jon for leaving her to join another brotherhood. She's just overwhelmed because the people she loves always seem to leave or die on her.

Gendry… in AFFC he seemed ready to smash the Hound skull, so I would say that his reaction will be first of all one of relief and happiness to see her literally come back from the Underworld.

I would like it if Lady Stoneheart were the first topic of discussion. Maybe Arya asking why he's here with childrens and not out there playing the stupid knight role with the Brotherhood and him trying to explain about the lady.

Arya doesn't understand, then she remembers that strange wolf dream she had years ago and realizes the role she played in the resurrection of her mother. It would be a chapter full of mixed feelings: the happiness of being able to embrace her mother again and the sense of guilt of having contributed to making her this way.

Then... Arya doesn't know the way to the Hollow Hill, but Gendry does.

#arya stark #gendry #gendry waters #lady stoneheart #the bwb #twow #asoiaf #twow speculations #arya x gendry #gendrya

105 notes · View notes

hveliz07 · 7 years

Text

All things Gendrya -ASOS part VII

When Arya saw the shape of a great hill looming in the distance, golden in the afternoon sun, she knew it at once. They had come all the way back to High Heart.Arya walked around the circle of weirwood stumps with Lord Beric’s squire Ned, and they stood on top of one watching the last light fade in the west. They built a great fire atop the hill, and Thoros of Myr sat cross-legged beside it, gazing deep into the flames as if there was nothing else in all the world. “What is he doing?” Arya asked Ned. “Sometimes he sees things in the flames,” the squire told her. “The past. The future. Things happening far away.” Arya squinted at the fire to see if she could see what the red priest was seeing, but it only made her eyes water and before long she turned away. Gendry was watching the red priest as well. “Can you truly see the future there?” he asked suddenly. Thoros turned from the fire, sighing. “Not here. Not now. But some days, yes, the Lord of Light grants me visions.” Gendry looked dubious. “My master said you were a sot and a fraud, as bad a priest as there ever was.” “That was unkind.” Thoros chuckled. “True, but unkind. Who was this master of yours? Did I know you, boy?” “I was ‘prenticed to the master armorer Tobho Mott, on the Street of Steel. You used to buy your swords from him.” “Just so. He charged me twice what they were worth, then scolded me for setting them afire.” Thoros laughed. “Your master had it right. I was no very holy priest. I was born youngest of eight, so my father gave me over to the Red Temple, but it was not the path I would have chosen.“ It rained all through that night, and come morning Ned, Lem, and Watty the Miller awoke with chills. The rains did not let up. Merrit and Mudge were soon coughing as bad as Watty, and poor Ned seemed to grow more miserable with every mile. “When I wear my helm, the rain beats against the steel and gives me headaches,” he complained. “But when I take it off, my hair gets soaked and sticks to my face and in my mouth.” “You have a knife,” Gendry suggested. “If your hair annoys you so much, shave your bloody head.” He doesn’t like Ned. The squire seemed nice enough to Arya; maybe a little shy, but good- natured.

“Wylla was my wetnurse,” he repeated solemnly. “I swear it on the honor of my House.” “You have a House?” That was stupid; he was a squire, of course he had a House. “Who are you?” “My lady?” Ned looked embarrassed. “I’m Edric Dayne, the… the Lord of Starfall.” Behind them, Gendry groaned. “Lords and ladies,” he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. Arya plucked a withered crabapple off a passing branch and whipped it at him, bouncing it off his thick bull head. “Ow,” he said. “That hurt.” He felt the skin above his eye. “What kind of lady throws crabapples at people?” “The bad kind,” said Arya, suddenly contrite. She turned back to Ned. “I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were. My lord.”He looked at her uncomfortably. “My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal -” “That’s not so. He loved my lady mother.” “I’m sure he did, my lady, but -” “She was the only one he loved.” “He must have found that bastard under a cabbage leaf, then,” Gendry said behind them. Arya wished she had another crabapple to bounce off his face. “My father had honor,” she said angrily. “And we weren’t talking to you anyway. Why don’t you go back to Stoney Sept and ring that girl’s stupid bells?” Gendry ignored that. “At least your father raised his bastard, not like mine. I don’t even know my father’s name. Some smelly drunk, I’d wager, like the others my mother dragged home from the alehouse. Whenever she got mad at me, she’d say, ‘If your father was here, he’d beat you bloody.’ That’s all I know of him.” He spat. “Well, if he was here now, might be I’d beat him bloody. But he’s dead, I figure, and your father’s dead too, so what does it matter who he lay with?” It mattered to Arya, though she could not have said why. Ned was trying to apologize for upsetting her, but she did not want to hear it. The village was just where Notch had promised it would be. They took shelter in a grey stone stable. Only half a roof remained, but that was half a roof more than any other building in the village. It’s not a village, it’s only black stones and old bones. “Did the Lannisters kill the people who lived here?” Arya asked as she helped Anguy dry the horses. “No.” He pointed. “Look at how thick the moss grows on the stones. No one’s moved them for a long time. And there’s a tree growing out of the wall there, see? This place was put to the torch a long time ago.” “Who did it, then?” asked Gendry. “Hoster Tully.” Notch was a stooped thin grey-haired man, born in these parts. “This was Lord Goodbrook’s village. When Riverrun declared for Robert, Goodbrook stayed loyal to the king, so Lord Tully came down on him with fire and sword. After the Trident, Goodbrook’s son made his peace with Robert and Lord Hoster, but that didn’t help the dead none.” A silence fell. Gendry gave Arya a queer look, then turned away to brush his horse. “Lannisters,” Thoros said. “Roaring red and gold.” He lurched to his feet and went to Lord Beric. Lem and Tom wasted no time joining them. Arya could not make out what they were saying, but the singer kept glancing at her, and one time Lem got so angry he pounded a fist against the wall. That was when Lord Beric gestured for her to come closer. It was the last thing she wanted to do, but Harwin put a hand in the small of her back and pushed her forward. She took two steps and hesitated, full of dread. “My lord.” She waited to hear what Lord Beric would say. “Tell her,” the lightning lord commanded Thoros. The red priest squatted down beside her. “My lady,” he said, “the Lord granted me a view of Riverrun. An island in a sea of fire, it seemed. The flames were leaping lions with long crimson claws. And how they roared! A sea of Lannisters, my lady. Riverrun will soon come under attack.” Arya felt as though he’d punched her in the belly. “No!” “Sweetling,” said Thoros, “the flames do not lie. His words beat at her ears like the pounding of a drum, and suddenly it was more than Arya could stand. She wanted Riverrun, not Acorn Hall; she wanted her mother and her brother Robb, not Lady Smallwood or some uncle she never knew. Whirling, she broke for the door, and when Harwin tried to grab her arm she spun away from him quick as a snake. Outside the stables the rain was still falling, and distant lightning flashed in the west. Arya ran as fast as she could. She did not know where she was going, only that she wanted to be alone, away from all the voices, away from their hollow words and broken promises. All I wanted was to go to Riverrun. It was her own fault, for taking Gendry and Hot Pie with her when she left Harrenhal. She would have been better alone. If she had been alone, the outlaws would never have caught her, and she’d be with Robb and her mother by now. They were never my pack. If they had been, they wouldn’t leave me. She splashed through a puddle of muddy water. Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning.She ducked around the corner of one of the tumbledown houses, hoping the mossy walls would keep the rain off, and almost bowled right into one of the sentries. A mailed hand closed hard around her arm. “You’re hurting me,” she said, twisting in his grasp. “Let go, I was going to go back, I…” “Back?” Sandor Clegane’s laughter was iron scraping over stone. “Bugger that, wolf girl.You’re mine.”

THE END

#gendrya #arya stark #arya x gendry #allthingsgendrya #gendry #fuckyeahgendrya

14 notes · View notes

readbookywooks · 7 years

Text

Bran

In the yard below, Rickon ran with the wolves. Bran watched from his window seat. Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut him off, until Rickon saw him, screamed in delight, and went pelting off in another direction. Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close. His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire. Bran's Summer came last. He was silver and smoke, with eyes of yellow gold that saw all there was to see. Smaller than Grey Wind, and more wary. Bran thought he was the smartest of the litter. He could hear his brother's breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs. His eyes stung. He wanted to be down there, laughing and running. Angry at the thought, Bran knuckled away the tears before they could fall. His eighth name day had come and gone. He was almost a man grown now, too old to cry. "It was just a lie," he said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. "I can't fly. I can't even run." "Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. "I know a story about a crow." "I don't want any more stories," Bran snapped, his voice petulant. He had liked Old Nan and her stories once. Before. But it was different now. They left her with him all day now, to watch over him and clean him and keep him from being lonely, but she just made it worse. "I hate your stupid stories." The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. "My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too." She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp. No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she'd been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran's grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard's father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. She had lost both her sons to the war when King Robert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy's rebellion. Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died. All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories. "I don't care whose stories they are," Bran told her, "I hate them." He didn't want stories and he didn't want Old Nan. He wanted his mother and father. He wanted to go running with Summer loping beside him. He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows. He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers. He wanted it to be the way it had been before. "I know a story about a boy who hated stories," Old Nan said with her stupid little smile, her needles moving all the while, click click click, until Bran was ready to scream at her. It would never be the way it had been, he knew. The crow had tricked him into flying, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed. They had all left him, his father and his mother and his sisters and even his bastard brother Jon. His father had promised he would ride a real horse to King's Landing, but they'd gone without him. Maester Luwin had sent a bird after Lord Eddard with a message, and another to Mother and a third to Jon on the Wall, but there had been no answers. "Ofttimes the birds are lost, child," the maester had told him. "There's many a mile and many a hawk between here and King's Landing, the message may not have reached them." Yet to Bran it felt as if they had all died while he had slept . . . or perhaps Bran had died, and they had forgotten him. Jory and Ser Rodrik and Vayon Poole had gone too, and Hullen and Harwin and Fat Tom and a quarter of the guard. Only Robb and baby Rickon were still here, and Robb was changed. He was Robb the Lord now, or trying to be. He wore a real sword and never smiled. His days were spent drilling the guard and practicing his swordplay, making the yard ring with the sound of steel as Bran watched forlornly from his window. At night he closeted himself with Maester Luwin, talking or going over account books. Sometimes he would ride out with Hallis Mollen and be gone for days at a time, visiting distant holdfasts. Whenever he was away more than a day, Rickon would cry and ask Bran if Robb was ever coming back. Even when he was home at Winterfell, Robb the Lord seemed to have more time for Hallis Mollen and Theon Greyjoy than he ever did for his brothers. "I could tell you the story about Brandon the Builder," Old Nan said. "That was always your favorite." Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head. "That's not my favorite," he said. "My favorites were the scary ones." He heard some sort of commotion outside and turned back to the window. Rickon was running across the yard toward the gatehouse, the wolves following him, but the tower faced the wrong way for Bran to see what was happening. He smashed a fist on his thigh in frustration and felt nothing. "Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods." "You mean the Others," Bran said querulously. "The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?" "Well," Bran said reluctantly, "yes, only . . . " Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children." Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen. "Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—" The door opened with a bang, and Bran's heart leapt up into his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luwin, with Hodor looming in the stairway behind him. "Hodor!" the stableboy announced, as was his custom, smiling hugely at them all. Maester Luwin was not smiling. "We have visitors," he announced, "and your presence is required, Bran." "I'm listening to a story now," Bran complained. "Stories wait, my little lord, and when you come back to them, why, there they are," Old Nan said. "Visitors are not so patient, and ofttimes they bring stories of their own." "Who is it?" Bran asked Maester Luwin. "Tyrion Lannister, and some men of the Night's Watch, with word from your brother Jon. Robb is meeting with them now. Hodor, will you help Bran down to the hall?" "Hodor!" Hodor agreed happily. He ducked to get his great shaggy head under the door. Hodor was nearly seven feet tall. It was hard to believe that he was the same blood as Old Nan. Bran wondered if he would shrivel up as small as his great-grandmother when he was old. It did not seem likely, even if Hodor lived to be a thousand. Hodor lifted Bran as easy as if he were a bale of hay, and cradled him against his massive chest. He always smelled faintly of horses, but it was not a bad smell. His arms were thick with muscle and matted with brown hair. "Hodor," he said again. Theon Greyjoy had once commented that Hodor did not know much, but no one could doubt that he knew his name. Old Nan had cackled like a hen when Bran told her that, and confessed that Hodor's real name was Walder. No one knew where "Hodor" had come from, she said, but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had. They left Old Nan in the tower room with her needles and her memories. Hodor hummed tunelessly as he carried Bran down the steps and through the gallery, with Maester Luwin following behind, hurrying to keep up with the stableboy's long strides. Robb was seated in Father's high seat, wearing ringmail and boiled leather and the stern face of Robb the Lord. Theon Greyjoy and Hallis Mollen stood behind him. A dozen guardsmen lined the grey stone walls beneath tall narrow windows. In the center of the room the dwarf stood with his servants, and four strangers in the black of the Night's Watch. Bran could sense the anger in the hall the moment that Hodor carried him through the doors. "Any man of the Night's Watch is welcome here at Winterfell for as long as he wishes to stay," Robb was saying with the voice of Robb the Lord. His sword was across his knees, the steel bare for all the world to see. Even Bran knew what it meant to greet a guest with an unsheathed sword. "Any man of the Night's Watch," the dwarf repeated, "but not me, do I take your meaning, boy?" Robb stood and pointed at the little man with his sword. "I am the lord here while my mother and father are away, Lannister. I am not your boy." "If you are a lord, you might learn a lord's courtesy," the little man replied, ignoring the sword point in his face. "Your bastard brother has all your father's graces, it would seem." "Jon," Bran gasped out from Hodor's arms. The dwarf turned to look at him. "So it is true, the boy lives. I could scarce believe it. You Starks are hard to kill." "You Lannisters had best remember that," Robb said, lowering his sword. "Hodor, bring my brother here." "Hodor," Hodor said, and he trotted forward smiling and set Bran in the high seat of the Starks, where the Lords of Winterfell had sat since the days when they called themselves the Kings in the North. The seat was cold stone, polished smooth by countless bottoms; the carved heads of direwolves snarled on the ends of its massive arms. Bran clasped them as he sat, his useless legs dangling. The great seat made him feel half a baby. Robb put a hand on his shoulder. "You said you had business with Bran. Well, here he is, Lannister." Bran was uncomfortably aware of Tyrion Lannister's eyes. One was black and one was green, and both were looking at him, studying him, weighing him. "I am told you were quite the climber, Bran," the little man said at last. "Tell me, how is it you happened to fall that day?" "I never," Bran insisted. He never fell, never never never. "The child does not remember anything of the fall, or the climb that came before it," said Maester Luwin gently. "Curious," said Tyrion Lannister. "My brother is not here to answer questions, Lannister," Robb said curtly. "Do your business and be on your way." "I have a gift for you," the dwarf said to Bran. "Do you like to ride, boy?" Maester Luwin came forward. "My lord, the child has lost the use of his legs. He cannot sit a horse." "Nonsense," said Lannister. "With the right horse and the right saddle, even a cripple can ride." The word was a knife through Bran's heart. He felt tears come unbidden to his eyes. "I'm not a cripple!" "Then I am not a dwarf," the dwarf said with a twist of his mouth. "My father will rejoice to hear it." Greyjoy laughed. "What sort of horse and saddle are you suggesting?" Maester Luwin asked. "A smart horse," Lannister replied. "The boy cannot use his legs to command the animal, so you must shape the horse to the rider, teach it to respond to the reins, to the voice. I would begin with an unbroken yearling, with no old training to be unlearned." He drew a rolled paper from his belt. "Give this to your saddler. He will provide the rest." Maester Luwin took the paper from the dwarfs hand, curious as a small grey squirrel. He unrolled it, studied it. "I see. You draw nicely, my lord. Yes, this ought to work. I should have thought of this myself." "It came easier to me, Maester. It is not terribly unlike my own saddles." "Will I truly be able to ride?" Bran asked. He wanted to believe them, but he was afraid. Perhaps it was just another lie. The crow had promised him that he could fly. "You will," the dwarf told him. "And I swear to you, boy, on horseback you will be as tall as any of them." Robb Stark seemed puzzled. "Is this some trap, Lannister? What's Bran to you? Why should you want to help him?" "Your brother Jon asked it of me. And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things." Tyrion Lannister placed a hand over his heart and grinned. The door to the yard flew open. Sunlight came streaming across the hall as Rickon burst in, breathless. The direwolves were with him. The boy stopped by the door, wide-eyed, but the wolves came on. Their eyes found Lannister, or perhaps they caught his scent. Summer began to growl first. Grey Wind picked it up. They padded toward the little man, one from the right and one from the left. "The wolves do not like your smell, Lannister," Theon Greyioy commented. "Perhaps it's time I took my leave," Tyrion said. He took a step backward . . . and Shaggydog came out of the shadows behind him, snarling. Lannister recoiled, and Summer lunged at him from the other side. He reeled away, unsteady on his feet, and Grey Wind snapped at his arm, teeth ripping at his sleeve and tearing loose a scrap of cloth. "No!" Bran shouted from the high seat as Lannister's men reached for their steel. "Summer, here. Summer, to me!" The direwolf heard the voice, glanced at Bran, and again at Lannister. He crept backward, away from the little man, and settled down below Bran's dangling feet. Robb had been holding his breath. He let it out with a sigh and called, "Grey Wind." His direwolf moved to him, swift and silent. Now there was only Shaggydog, rumbling at the small man, his eyes burning like green fire. "Rickon, call him," Bran shouted to his baby brother, and Rickon remembered himself and screamed, "Home, Shaggy, home now." The black wolf gave Lannister one final snarl and bounded off to Rickon, who hugged him tightly around the neck. Tyrion Lannister undid his scarf, mopped at his brow, and said in a flat voice, "How interesting." "Are you well, my lord?" asked one of his men, his sword in hand. He glanced nervously at the direwolves as he spoke. "My sleeve is torn and my breeches are unaccountably damp, but nothing was harmed save my dignity." Even Robb looked shaken. "The wolves . . . I don't know why they did that . . . " "No doubt they mistook me for dinner." Lannister bowed stiffly to Bran. "I thank you for calling them off, young ser. I promise you, they would have found me quite indigestible. And now I will be leaving, truly." "A moment, my lord," Maester Luwin said. He moved to Robb and they huddled close together, whispering. Bran tried to hear what they were saying, but their voices were too low. Robb Stark finally sheathed his sword. "I . . . I may have been hasty with you," he said. "You've done Bran a kindness, and, well . . . " Robb composed himself with an effort. "The hospitality of Winterfell is yours if you wish it, Lannister." "Spare me your false courtesies, boy. You do not love me and you do not want me here. I saw an inn outside your walls, in the winter town. I'll find a bed there, and both of us will sleep easier. For a few coppers I may even find a comely wench to warm the sheets for me." He spoke to one of the black brothers, an old man with a twisted back and a tangled beard. "Yoren, we go south at daybreak. You will find me on the road, no doubt." With that he made his exit, struggling across the hall on his short legs, past Rickon and out the door. His men followed. The four of the Night's Watch remained. Robb turned to them uncertainly. "I have had rooms prepared, and you'll find no lack of hot water to wash off the dust of the road. I hope you will honor us at table tonight." He spoke the words so awkwardly that even Bran took note; it was a speech he had learned, not words from the heart, but the black brothers thanked him all the same. Summer followed them up the tower steps as Hodor carried Bran back to his bed. Old Nan was asleep in her chair. Hodor said "Hodor," gathered up his great-grandmother, and carried her off, snoring softly, while Bran lay thinking. Robb had promised that he could feast with the Night's Watch in the Great Hall. "Summer," he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. "I can ride now," he whispered to his friend. "We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see." After a time he slept. In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. "I didn't hear," he wept as they came closer and closer, "I didn't, I didn't." He woke gasping, lost in darkness, and saw a vast shadow looming over him. "I didn't hear," he whispered, trembling in fear, but then the shadow said "Hodor," and lit the candle by the bedside, and Bran sighed with relief. Hodor washed the sweat from him with a warm, damp cloth and dressed him with deft and gentle hands. When it was time, he carried him down to the Great Hall, where a long trestle table had been set up near the fire. The lord's seat at the head of the table had been left empty, but Robb sat to the right of it, with Bran across from him. They ate suckling pig that night, and pigeon pie, and turnips soaking in butter, and afterward the cook had promised honeycombs. Summer snatched table scraps from Bran's hand, while Grey Wind and Shaggydog fought over a bone in the corner. Winterfell's dogs would not come near the hall now. Bran had found that strange at first, but he was growing used to it. Yoren was senior among the black brothers, so the steward had seated him between Robb and Maester Luwin. The old man had a sour smell, as if he had not washed in a long time. He ripped at the meat with his teeth, cracked the ribs to suck out the marrow from the bones, and shrugged at the mention of Jon Snow. "Ser Alliser's bane," he grunted, and two of his companions shared a laugh that Bran did not understand. But when Robb asked for news of their uncle Benjen, the black brothers grew ominously quiet. "What is it?" Bran asked. Yoren wiped his fingers on his vest. "There's hard news, m'lords, and a cruel way to pay you for your meat and mead, but the man as asks the question must bear the answer. Stark's gone." One of the other men said, "The Old Bear sent him out to look for Waymar Royce, and he's late returning, my lord." "Too long," Yoren said. "Most like he's dead." "My uncle is not dead," Robb Stark said loudly, anger in his tones. He rose from the bench and laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Do you hear me? My uncle is not dead!" His voice rang against the stone walls, and Bran was suddenly afraid. Old sour-smelling Yoren looked up at Robb, unimpressed. "Whatever you say, m'lord," he said. He sucked at a piece of meat between his teeth. The youngest of the black brothers shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "There's not a man on the Wall knows the haunted forest better than Benjen Stark. He'll find his way back." "Well," said Yoren, "maybe he will and maybe he won't. Good men have gone into those woods before, and never come out." All Bran could think of was Old Nan's story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment, until he remembered how that story ended. "The children will help him," he blurted, "the children of the forest!" Theon Greyjoy sniggered, and Maester Luwin said, "Bran, the children of the forest have been dead and gone for thousands of years. All that is left of them are the faces in the trees." "Down here, might be that's true, Maester," Yoren said, "but up past the Wall, who's to say? Up there, a man can't always tell what's alive and what's dead." That night, after the plates had been cleared, Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind. His brother was strong for his age, and Bran was as light as a bundle of rags, but the stairs were steep and dark, and Robb was breathing hard by the time they reached the top. He put Bran into bed, covered him with blankets, and blew out the candle. For a time Robb sat beside him in the dark. Bran wanted to talk to him, but he did not know what to say. "We'll find a horse for you, I promise," Robb whispered at last. "Are they ever coming back?" Bran asked him. "Yes," Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. "Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse?" Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother's smile. "And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure." "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together.

#GameofThrones

0 notes

she-wolf-of-highgarden · 5 years

Text

Arya and Trees

Maiden of the Tree, indeed. (Pt.1/?...there are more tree mentions than i anticipated when i started this)

“Her bedchamber was the only place that Arya liked in all of King's Landing, and the thing she liked best about it was the door, a massive slab of dark oak with black iron bands.” - Arya II, AGoT

“The old man dragged her well off the road into a tangle of trees, cursing and muttering all the while. "If I had a thimble o' sense, I would've left you in King's Landing. You hear me, boy?" He always snarled that word, putting a bite in it so she would be certain to hear. "Unlace your breeches and pull 'em down. Go on, there's no one here to see. Do it." Sullenly, Arya did as he said. "Over there, against the oak. Yes, like that." She wrapped her arms around the trunk and pressed her face to the rough wood. "You scream now. You scream loud." - Arya I, ACoK

“A boy called Tarber tossed a handful of acorns on top of Praed's body, so an oak might grow to mark his place.” - Arya II, ACoK

“The one-armed woman died at evenfall. Gendry and Cutjack dug her grave on a hillside beneath a weeping willow.” - Arya II, ACoK

“The land was gentle enough, rolling hills and terraced fields interspersed with meadows and woodlands and little valleys where willows crowded close to slow shallow streams.” - Arya III, ACoK

“Once, in the middle of a dense stand of oak, they came face-to-face with three men pulling a load of firewood in an ox cart, with no way for either to get around. There had been nothing for it but to wait while the foresters unhitched their ox, led him through the trees, spun the cart, hitched the ox up again, and started back the way they'd come. The ox was even slower than the wagons, so that day they hardly got anywhere at all.

Arya could not help looking over her shoulder, wondering when the gold cloaks would catch them. At night, she woke at every noise to grab for Needle's hilt. They never made camp without putting out sentries now, but Arya did not trust them, especially the orphan boys. They might have done well enough in the alleys of King's Landing, but out here they were lost. When she was being quiet as a shadow, she could sneak past all of them, flitting out by starlight to make her water in the woods where no one would see. Once, when Lommy Greenhands had the watch, she shimmied up an oak and moved from tree to tree until she was right above his head, and he never saw a thing.” - Arya III, ACoK

“Lommy Greenhands sat propped up between two thick roots at the foot of an oak. A spear had taken him through his left calf during the fight at the holdfast. By the end of the next day, he had to limp along one-legged with an arm around Gendry, and now he couldn't even do that. They'd hacked branches off trees to make a litter for him, but it was slow, hard work carrying him along, and he whimpered every time they jounced him.” - Arya V, ACoK

“They found Lommy where they'd left him, under the oak. "I yield," he called out at once when he saw them. He'd flung away his own spear and raised his hands, splotchy green with old dye. "I yield. Please." - Arya V, ACoK

“With Pinkeye awake, she dared not go back to her bed. Not knowing where else to hide, she made for the godswood. She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of grass and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves.” - Arya IX, ACoK

“She slashed at birch leaves till the splintery point of the broken broomstick was green and sticky. "Ser Gregor," she breathed. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling." She spun and leapt and balanced on the balls of her feet, darting this way and that, knocking pinecones flying. "The Tickler," she called out one time, "the Hound," the next. "Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." The bole of an oak loomed before her, and she lunged to drive her point through it, grunting "Joffrey, Joffrey, Joffrey." Her arms and legs were dappled by sunlight and the shadows of leaves. A sheen of sweat covered her skin by the time she paused. The heel of her right foot was bloody where she'd skinned it, so she stood one-legged before the heart tree and raised her sword in salute. "Valar morghulis," she told the old gods of the north.” - Arya X, ACoK

“This postern was the least of Harrenhal's gates, a narrow door of stout oak studded with iron nails, set in an angle of the wall beneath a defensive tower.” - Arya X, ACoK

“Outside the walls of Harrenhal, a wolf howled long and loud. She lifted the bar, set it aside, and pulled open the heavy oak door.” - Arya X, ASoS

“It was no good arguing, Arya realized; Gendry had the right of it. The Mummers will need to sleep too, she told herself, hoping it was true. She was so weary it was a struggle even to get down from the saddle, but she remembered to hobble her horse before finding a place beneath a beech tree.” - Arya I, ASoS

“They still had not seen so much as a glimpse of the sun. It was growing colder, and pale white mists were threading between the pines and blowing across the bare burned fields.” - Arya I, ASoS

“The soldier pines were dressed in somber greens, the broadleafs in russets and faded golds already beginning to brown.” - Arya I, ASoS

“Lightfoot, she moved to the big old willow that grew beside the bend in the road and went to one knee in the grass and mud, within the veil of trailing branches.” - Arya II, ASoS

“Two, then. Arya bit her lip. She could not see them from where she knelt, on account of the willow. But she could hear.” - Arya II, ASoS

"Now who are you?" demanded Lem, in the deep voice that Arya had heard through the branches of the willow.” - Arya II, ASoS

“Are you Old Pate's daughter, then? A sister? A wife? Tell me no lies, Squab. I buried Old Pate myself, right there under that willow where you were hiding, and you don't have his look." He drew a sad sound from his harp. "We've buried many a good man this past year, but we've no wish to bury you, I swear it on my harp. Archer, show her."The archer's hand moved quicker than Arya would have believed. His shaft went hissing past her head within an inch of her ear and buried itself in the trunk of the willow behind her.” - Arya II, ASoS

“There were woods to her left, she saw. I can lose them there. A dry ditch ran along one side of the field, but she leapt it without breaking stride, and plunged in among the stand of elm and yew and birch trees. A quick peek back showed Anguy and Harwin still hard on her heels. Greenbeard had fallen behind, though, and she could not see Lem at all. "Faster," she told her horse, "you can, you can."Between two elms she rode, and never paused to see which side the moss was growing on. She leapt a rotten log and swung wide around a monstrous deadfall, jagged with broken branches.” - Arya III, ASoS

"I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns."

"Nice, though. A nice oak tree." He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. "You even smell nice for a change." - Arya IV, ASoS

“The dogs caught the scent. He was sleeping off a drunk under a willow tree, if you believe it." - Arya VI, ASoS

“Panting from exertion, Clegane jerked his shield up over his head just in time, and the cave rang with the loud crack of splintering oak.” - Arya VI, ASoS

“With a shout of revulsion, he hacked down savagely on the broken oak, completing its destruction.” - Arya VI, ASoS

“Nor do they love the flames. For the oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both.” - Arya VIII, ASoS

“They sat on damp rocks beneath an oak tree, listening to the slow patter of water dripping from the leaves as they ate a cold supper of hardbread, moldy cheese, and smoked sausage.” - Arya IX, ASoS

“One day, in an earthen hollow made by the roots of a fallen oak, they came face to face with another survivor of the Twins.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“In the higher hills, they came upon a tiny isolated village surrounded by grey-green sentinels and tall blue soldier pines, and Clegane decided to risk going in.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“Close by the water's edge, they found some willows rising from a jumble of weathered rocks. Together the rocks and trees formed a sort of natural fort where they could hide from both river and trail. "Here will do," the Hound said. "Water the horses and gather some deadwood for a fire." When he dismounted, he had to catch himself on a tree limb to keep from falling.” - Arya XIII, ASoS

“There, where Denyo pointed, a line of stony ridges rose sudden from the sea, their steep slopes covered with soldier pines and black spruce.” - Arya I, AFfC

“The sound was as huge as he was, a terrible groaning and grinding, so loud it drowned out even the captain's voice and the crash of the waves against those pine-clad ridges.” - Arya I, AFfC

“The shadow lifted, the pine-clad ridges fell away to either side, the winds dwindled, and they found themselves moving through a great lagoon.” - Arya I, AFfC

“The scent was unfamiliar, and she put it down to some queer incense, but as she got deeper into the temple, they seemed to smell of snow and pine needles and hot stew.” - Arya I, AFfC

“Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles.” - Arya I, AFfC

#Arya Stark #We get it george the forest has trees #trees #a clash of trees #is more acurate #we know #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf

10 notes · View notes