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writergirl2011 · 8 months

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Regarding Hyle Hunt

There's been a little discourse regarding the role one Ser Hyle Hunt will play in Lady Brienne of Tarth's storyline going forward. Some people seem to think that he is her perfect match because they hate the idea that Brienne deserves to have a romance with the man she wants--aka one Ser Jaime Lannister--because that messes with the narrative they want to push, whatever that narrative may be.

Some people think that Ser Hyle Hunt is a more interesting and more remarkable man than he truly is, when nothing he's said or done to this point has shown him to be anything of the sort. Personally, I'm not impressed with a man who set up a bet with his buddies over a young noblewoman's virginity--which was essentially the kiss of death to said young woman, who didn't have much going for her on the marriage mart in the first place. (Don't give me the "men will be men" explanation. That makes you no better than Randyll Tarly.) And his proposal of marriage boils down to: "Hey, baby, you've got an island and a lot of money, I've got a functional dick that's already proven to be fertile. I can close my eyes and blow out the candle. Let's do it." How romantic.

There has been absolutely no indication that Brienne will ever love this man, or even care the slightest for him. Threatening to turn someone into a eunuch isn't playful banter, especially not when said man once bet on her virginity and the last time she confronted someone(s) in that bet, she beat the living shit out of them. She hasn't forgotten, and she really hasn't forgiven. And when it comes to Hyle, she never really will, because in her eyes, what he did was the worst of all of them. He came the closest to winning by doing the one thing none of the others did--he made her feel included, like she might be earning a little bit of respect in that camp. Then she found out it was all a lie.

"But she hated Jaime at first!" Yeah, but that was before Jaime: told a lie about Tarth's wealth to save her from rape; shouted "sapphires" and risked a beating to save her from rape again; risked his own life to save hers by jumping unarmed into a bear pit (with only one hand to boot), and revealed the truth about why he killed Aerys, thus revealing that rather than it being a callous act, he'd saved an entire city of innocents--a noble act. THEN he put his trust in her to find Sansa, gifting her with a horse, armor, and a priceless sword. He gave her the respect Hyle only pretended to give her, expecting nothing in return.

What has Hyle done on their road trip? When Brienne kills the three former Bloody Mummers, I'm curious: how long was Hyle there? At least long enough to see her and Pod burying Nimble Dick, but the way he's described sitting there casually makes me think he'd been there longer. Watching. Sitting back doing nothing while she might've been killed. And we don't know what his true motives are in following her. If she finds Sansa, is he going to help her get Sansa to safety--or is he going to betray her and try to turn Sansa in to the Crown for the reward?

If you want any further proof that she doesn't care about Hyle, think about who she tried to bargain for when Lady Stoneheart was about to hang them all. Not herself, and certainly not Hyle. Podrick, the boy. And when they were hanging, as she was dying. the only person she had eyes for was Pod.

And who did she presumably agree to kill Jaime for? Podrick.

Yeah. She's really going to come around on Hyle.

#Brienne of Tarth #Hyle Hunt #Jaime Lannister #ASOIAF meta #give me a break people #reading comprehension #it's a thing

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sdwolfpup · 4 months

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Oh festive prompt 27 puhhhhleese!!

Last one! 😊 A little post-ADWD book canon that is not exactly festive but does have snow.

(I appreciate the asks from people! The fics that I didn't post separately to AO3, I'll add to my A Job Lot of Junk collection after this.)

27. confessing a crush when it's snowing

In the end, the sun rose again. Though it had felt like it would never happen, the Long Night finally ended.

The winter hadn't, though. Jaime had hoped, when the last Other had fallen, that they would take the snow with them--but his luck had never been that good.

At least, not until Brienne of Tarth had dragged him across Westeros.

Some would say she had been the start of his bad luck, and there had been a time he would have agreed. Losing a hand would make even the most stalwart idealist falter, and he had burned away his idealism long ago.

But since she had stormed into his life with her stubborn honor and bullheaded bravery, he had never felt more grateful for being alive. He had intended to tell her so a hundred times, but there had always been distance, or something more important between them, or his own cowardice. Now that they had survived the Long Night, there were no more excuses. Plans were already being made for what came next, and he could not bear the thought of not being part of hers. He had to tell her, or risk losing her forever.

If only he could find her.

"You don't know where she is? Are you not her squire?" he demanded of the trembling stick of a boy in front of him a few days after the Long Night.

"Y-y-y-yes, s-s-s-ser."

"How do you lose a person that size, then?"

Podrick flinched, as though expecting a blow. "S-s-s-s-s-sorry, s-s-s-ser."

Jaime sighed and forced himself to calm. He had seen Brienne just last night, when he had watched her eat a meal of mostly inedible mush with Podrick and the useless Hyle Hunt. It wasn't the boy's fault she was an eternally early riser with a predilection for solitude, even after the most difficult and dangerous battle of their lives.

"Never mind," he told the boy more kindly. "I'll find her myself."

The boy was still stuttering over his thanks as Jaime walked away.

*****

"There you are!" he finally said, hours later. He'd tromped all over and through Winterfell until he'd finally decided she'd run away in the night, or been taken by grumkins. Then, on his way to the stables to procure a horse to search for her further afield to make sure she hadn't died, he'd found her exiting them. The snow had started to fall again, and Jaime felt a shiver roll through him.

"Where have you been?" he nearly shouted. "I looked everywhere for you."

Brienne came to a halt, her blue eyes going very wide and darting away, as if he'd caught her doing something she shouldn't. No one had been forbidden from leaving Winterfell, though it was foolish to go alone so soon after the Long Night.

"I... I went for a ride," she said in the soft voice he heard in his dreams.

"On your own? Without even telling your poor, worried squire?"

Her massive brow furrowed. "You spoke with Podrick?"

"I couldn't very well speak with you, could I?" he snarled.

That furrow turned into an annoyed crease.

"I am free to go where and when I please, Ser. Just as you are."

He laughed dully. "Indeed." The snow was falling harder now. "You are entirely free. Free to take rides by yourself in the countryside. Free to eat with that useless hedge knight, Hunt. You could even scamper back to Tarth tomorrow, if you wanted."

Brienne huffed, loud as a bear. "Were you only looking for for me to harangue me about my independence? If so, might we do it inside where it's warmer?"

He planted his feet and blinked away the snowflakes that were sticking to his lashes. "Here is fine. So tell me, my lady, why were you out riding with nary a word to anyone?"

There went her eyes again, escaping his gaze to stare somewhere off his left ear. "I needed the air."

Jaime gestured around them. "There is more than enough air here."

"I do not have to explain myself to you," she groused. She started to move past him and he grabbed her wrist. She spun, her other hand coming up as if to fight and he released her immediately. "What do you want?" Her voice was thin and sharp as an icicle.

"I want to know what you're hiding from me."

"Nothing." She looked almost as if she might cry, and a fissure cracked across his heart.

"Brienne," he said softly and she bit down on her thick, chapped lip. "You promised me no more lies." She flushed, her head drooping. "I want only to help you. So tell me: why did you go out on your own? Why did you tell no one?" And then, because he could not stop himself, he pleaded, "Why did you not tell me?"

Her hands wrapped around each other, her knuckles red from the cold. Snow was trapped in her thin, plaited hair and had started turning her nose an unsightly pink where it melted upon it.

He thought she might choose rather to freeze than to speak, until she said in a resigned voice, "I needed to think. And I needed to be away from you to do it."

The chasm of concern that had opened in his chest iced over in the bitter wind of her words. "I see."

"It is not what you think," she hurriedly said.

The snow swirled around them, but Jaime felt none of it, numb inside and out. "It seems very clear to me."

"You... confuse me," she explained haltingly, her hands throttling each other. "I cannot think clearly when you are near."

The ice ceased hardening, and he held himself very still. "I did not realize my mere presence was such a problem."

She exhaled sharply, a warm blast of air in the cold. "You are vexing," she said, as though scolding him. "And confounding. And I needed clarity."

"About what?" he asked, desperate to understand.

"About you." Brienne's hands waved wide and wild in the air, swirling snowflakes all around her. "About why you would search all of Winterfell looking for me and then act as if you don't care once you are here. About how we fought at each other's side through all the Long Night, and yet we barely even eat together now that it is done. About what you did for me with Lady Catelyn." Her voice had dropped, almost lost in the snow. "And how you have refused my every gratitude since."

Jaime sighed. "That was nothing to be grateful for."

"I am grateful."

"Because you are a naive fool."

She growled and took a threatening step nearer. He felt his blood pump to life, heating his veins and cracking the ice.

"A fool I may be, but I am not naive," she said with a force and conviction that made his spine jolt with pride--and his knees weak with something far less honorable. "Not any longer. Not after all I have been through." She pierced him with her astonishing blue eyes. "Not after all we have been through."

His usually reliable tongue failed him, and Jaime could only draw a pitiful excuse for a smirk upon his face.

Brienne frowned. "You have had my honest answer, ser, now give me yours: why were you so determined to find me? What do you want?"

The snow blew about them, white and cold and a distant reminder of the dark freeze that had so recently gripped the world. But for Jaime, it was spring in Brienne's eyes, in the familiar, frustrated concern in her face. In the way his heart was blooming in his chest, shaking off the lingering frost.

"What do I want?" he repeated, a slow, simmering smile growing on his face. Brienne only looked more wary--and he found it endearing. "I should think that was obvious. I want you, Brienne."

"For what?"

He chuckled fondly. "For whatever you wish of me. I find myself at odds and ends when you are not there to drag me about."

She glowered at him. "I do not drag you."

"Not any longer," he allowed. Then, with all the seriousness of intention he could muster, he said, "Now, I follow you willingly. I want to follow you for as many days as you will allow me, Brienne. Wherever you may go."

He knew it was not the snow that made her cheeks swirl suddenly pink. The color reminded him of the first sunrise after the Long Night--and he was as grateful for and overwhelmed by it.

"I would rather you walked beside me," she said in hushed tones, her eyes searching his own.

He hoped she could see the truth in them when he replied, "That is a place I fought demons off to be."

"Do you not see that I fought for that place by you as well?" she asked without reprimand.

He inhaled sharply, her words filling his very lungs. She had found him as often as he had her during the battles. She had found him from the beginning, the lost and lonely man that everyone else had overlooked. "Perhaps I am the fool," he said in a choked voice.

He held out his hand and she took it. He felt her trembling as they walked hand-in-hand across the courtyard. The snow slowed to a caressing drift, and the sun fought valiantly through the flat white of the sky to peek through in the distance. Perhaps later there would be warmth and the first breath of spring.

It was a marvelous day to be alive, and walking beside Brienne.

#jaime x brienne #my fic #fic post #asks answered #winterstale24 #festive prompts #asoiaf

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goodqueenaly · 3 months

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Realistically speaking, how would Brienne or anyone else react to any speculation or reveal that she is Dunk's descendant?

To be clear, I don’t think Brienne (or anyone else in the main story, for that matter) will ever find out that she is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall. If the Dunk-Tarth connection plays out the way I think it will (and much of my speculation in this post is going to be using that theory as a baseline), then we’re talking about a romantic/sexual relationship that happened some 80 years prior to the start of ASOIAF; even if Brienne’s ancestor was conceived at a different time from what I imagine, this ancestor certainly has to have existed by 259 AC, when Dunk died at Summerhall. We’re talking, in other words, about at least the better part of half a century, if not close to a century, of difference in time from the birth of this ancestor to the main novels - far too long, probably, for anyone with living memory of this relationship to report on what happened. Too, if Dunk conceived a child with Daella who was in turn passed off as the child of Lord (?) Tarth, then who apart from Dunk and Daella themselves would have known that this affair happened? I suppose it’s remotely possible that someone could, say, get a supernatural vision of the past including this relationship, but I don’t see how this vision would fit into the narrative without feeling awkward and unnecessary. Ultimately, I don’t think Brienne needs to discover the answer to a question neither she nor anyone else around her is asking; this is a mystery we as readers, observing all (or, at least, all of what we’ve been told) of Westerosi history at the same moment, care far more about than anyone in the current novels does.

Anyway, putting all of that aside, it’s difficult to know what Brienne might think if she learned that she was a biological descendant of Duncan the Tall. On the one hand, if Dunk conceived a child with Daella while he was a knight of the Kingsguard (not to mention while Daella was married to (again, presumably) Lord Tarth), then Brienne might struggle with the idea that her ancestor broke his Kingsguard vows for the sake of a sexual affair (and again, with a royal princess, no less). After all, cultural memory on Tarth does not simply idealize the heroic figure of Ser Galladon of Morne- literally referred to as “the Perfect Knight” - but specifically links that perfection, in part, to the obviously chaste romance between Ser Galladon and the Maiden - the beau ideal of unconsummated chivalric devotion. Nor indeed might Brienne look kindly on her would-be great-grandfather using (so it might seem, at least) the closeness of his role as Daella’s royal guardian to pursue a sexual relationship with her. After all, Brienne had experienced severe shock and disillusionment upon learning that the knights of Renly’s camp at Highgarden who had curried her favor, and even (as Hyle Hunt did) treated her as their equal, had only done so in order to claim her as a sexual conquest in return for a monetary prize. Would Brienne sneer at Duncan the Tall, with respect to his affair with Daella, much in the way she did (at least initially) at Jaime - that he, Dunk, had “scorned and soiled” that “rare and precious gift” Dunk had (in part ostensibly) received, to be a knight and a knight of the Kingsguard? Would she consider Dunk no better than the sleazy knights who had viewed her, Brienne, as no more than a source of casual sex - that her great-grandfather had had no more respect for her great-grandmother’s virtue and his own honor as a knight than men like Ben Bushy and Will the Stork had had for her virtue and their honor?

On the other hand, it would of course be wrong to characterize Brienne as a person who has no concept of romantic attraction and love, even - and, indeed, especially - in the context of knightly service. Brienne’s desperation to serve Renly, and especially to join his Rainbown Guard, stemmed in no small part from Brienne’s very strong, though obviously unrequited, romantic love for Renly. Likewise, though this paragraph is naturally too brief to cover the complex relationship between Jaime and Brienne, her experiences with him have inextricably intertwined romance, chivalric duty, and the meaning of knighthood. (Nor, to be fair, should we ignore the fact that, according to Yandel, “[m]any of the folk of Tarth, highborn and low alike, claim descent from” Galladon of Morne, necessarily implying that Galladon had any number of romantic relationships that resulted in children.) Would Brienne compare her own desire to serve Renly as an expression of her love for him to, as it may have been, Dunk’s romantic devotion to Daella, framed and abetted by his service as a knight of the Kingsguard (when, indeed, he may have been sent specifically as her protector and sworn shield to Tarth)? Would Brienne understand where, perhaps, Dunk’s own romantic feelings toward Daella may have developed and evolved as his knightly service to her continue, when she, Brienne, had herself seen a notable change in her feelings toward Jaime as her quasi-knightly role with him progressed?

Moreover, all of the above speculation is without having a clear understanding of how the Tarths (much less anyone else in Westeros) remember Dunk (not to mention, for that matter, Daella). The presence of Dunk’s shield in the Evenfall Hall armory remains the only direct allusion to Dunk that we know of on Tarth today, a frustratingly vague reminder of his (presumed) time there. We have no idea what Brienne thinks of Dunk as a person (as opposed to simply the possessor, unidentified by her in the moment, of a shield she much admired as a child), much less as a person with a direct impact on the history of her House, and still less how the reputation of Dunk may have changed (or not) over the course of the better part of a century since he had, perhaps, lived there. Because we don’t know Brienne’s opinion of Dunk, we cannot at all say how such an opinion might be impacted by the revelation that Dunk fathered a child who would go on to (presumably) be one of Brienne’s grandparents.

#asoiaf meta #tarth targaryen theory #brienne of tarth #duncan the tall

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istumpysk · 2 years

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Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: Samwell II (Chapter 15)

Sam soon found himself clutching tightly to the gunwale and watching the sweep of the oars. The way they all moved together was somehow beautiful to behold, and better than looking at the water. Looking at the water only made him think of drowning. When he was small his lord father had tried to teach him how to swim by throwing him into the pond beneath Horn Hill. The water had gotten in his nose and in his mouth and in his lungs, and he coughed and wheezed for hours after Ser Hyle pulled him out. After that he never dared go in any deeper than his waist.

There's a familiar name!

Getting another look at Hyle Hunt from another person's perspective seems intentional.

+.+.+

"Looking for mermaids, Slayer?" asked Dareon when he saw Sam staring off across the bay. Fair-haired and hazel-eyed, the handsome young singer out of Eastwatch looked more like some dark prince than a black brother.

Funny that you say that. . .

Notice Samwell has never called Jon handsome? Because he's not! Stop trying to make handsome Jon happen.

+.+.+

Sam did not know what he was looking for, or what he was doing on this boat. Going to the Citadel to forge a chain and be a maester, to be of better service to the Watch, he told himself, but the thought just made him weary. He did not want to be a maester, with a heavy chain wrapped around his neck, cold against his skin. He did not want to leave his brothers, the only friends he'd ever had. And he certainly did not want to face the father who had sent him to the Wall to die.

It was different for the others. For them, the voyage would have a happy ending. Gilly would be safe at Horn Hill, with all the width of Westeros between her and the horrors she had known in the haunted forest. As a serving maid in his father's castle, she would be warm and well fed, a small part of a great world she could never have dreamed of as Craster's wife. She would watch her son grow up big and strong, and become a huntsman or a stablehand or a smith. If the boy showed any aptitude for arms, some knight might even take him as a squire.

+.+.+

Maester Aemon was going to a better place as well. It was pleasant to think of him spending whatever time remained him bathed by the warm breezes of Oldtown, conversing with his fellow maesters and sharing his wisdom with acolytes and novices. He had earned his rest, a hundred times over.

+.+.+

Even Dareon would be happier. He had always claimed to be innocent of the rape that sent him to the Wall, insisting that he belonged at some lord's court, singing for his supper. Now he would have that chance. Jon had named him a recruiter, to take the place of a man named Yoren, who had vanished and was presumed dead. His task would be to travel the Seven Kingdoms, singing of the valor of the Night's Watch, and from time to time returning to the Wall with new recruits.

(Lol, love that we're getting a reminder that Dareon probably shouldn't have been sent to the Wall.)

+.+.+

The voyage would be long and rough, no one could deny that, but for the others at least there would be a happy end. That was Sam's solace. I am going for them, he told himself, for the Night's Watch, and for the happy ending.

+.+.+

He tried to bolster Gilly's courage and give her what cheer he could, but that proved hard. She would not come up on deck, no matter what he said, and seemed to prefer to huddle in the dark with her son. The babe liked the ship no more than his mother did, it seemed. When he was not squalling, he was retching up his mother's milk.

Psst, Sam.

"Dalla's boy. He cries when he wants the teat. Mine . . . mine hardly ever cries. Sometimes he gurgles, but . . ." Her eyes filled with tears. - Samwell I, AFFC

+.+.+

"I was not born blind," he reminded them. "When last I passed this way, I saw every rock and tree and whitecap, and watched the grey gulls flying in our wake. I was five-and-thirty and had been a maester of the chain for sixteen years. Egg wanted me to help him rule, but I knew my place was here.

It's not every Aemons place though.

+.+.+

He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch.

Ser Duncan in the north! This trip happened long after he was kissing slender brown-haired girls, yes? I apologize, I don't know my history.

Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. - Bran III, ADWD

+.+.+

No recruit had arrived at the Wall with so much pomp since Nymeria sent the Watch six kings in golden fetters.

Wow, something other than ships. I'm speechless.

+.+.+

Egg emptied out the dungeons too, so I would not need to say my vows alone. My honor guard, he called them. One was no less a man than Brynden Rivers. Later he was chosen lord commander."

"Bloodraven?" said Dareon. "I know a song about him. 'A Thousand Eyes, and One,' it's called. But I thought he lived a hundred years ago."

Welcome to the story, Evil Mentor #3.

How would a singer know to name the song that?

"I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you … except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late." - Bran II, ADWD

Also, can't help being reminded of something.

They passed under the arches of a carved stone bridge, decorated with half a hundred kinds of fish and crabs and squids. A second bridge appeared ahead, this one carved in lacy leafy vines, and beyond that a third, gazing down on them from a thousand painted eyes. - Arya I, AFFC

Figuring out whether it's Bran or Bloodraven spying is going to drive me mad. It's more fun to pretend it's always Bran.

+.+.+

Even so, it was a better voyage than the last one Sam had taken. He had been no more than ten when he set sail on Lord Redwyne's galleas, the Arbor Queen.

[...]

Lord Redwyne's twin sons had despised Sam on first sight. Every morn they found some fresh way to shame him in the practice yard. On the third day Horas Redwyne made him squeal like a pig when he begged for quarter. On the fifth his brother Hobber clad a kitchen girl in his own armor and let her beat Sam with a wooden sword until he began to cry. When she revealed herself, all the squires and pages and stableboys howled with laughter.

Sam and Sansa deserve to make fun of Horror and Slobber together.

+.+.+

It was not until they were back at Horn Hill that his mother told Sam that his father had never meant for him to return. "Horas was to come with us in your place, whilst you remained on the Arbor as Lord Paxter's page and cupbearer. If you had pleased him, you would have been betrothed to his daughter." Sam could still recall the soft touch of his mother's hand as she washed the tears off his face with a bit of lace, dampened with her spit. "My poor Sam," she murmured. "My poor poor Sam."

The Brienne is loud in this story.

+.+.+

It will be good to see her again, he thought, as he clung to Blackbird's rail and watched waves breaking on the stony shore. If she saw me in my blacks, it might even make her proud. "I am a man now, Mother," I could tell her, "a steward, and a man of the Night's Watch. My brothers call me Sam the Slayer sometimes." He would see his brother Dickon too, and his sisters. "See," I could tell them, "see, I was good for something after all."

Hey, you know what I noticed? Samwell keeps saying Dickon's at Horn Hill when he's not. 🤔

His own mother was a thousand leagues south, safe with his sisters and his little brother Dickon in the keep at Horn Hill. - Samwell I, ASOS

+.+.+

Or so he thought, until Blackbird left the land behind and struck east across the bay for the shores of Skagos.

The island sat at the mouth of the Bay of Seals, massive and mountainous, a stark and forbidding land peopled by savages. They lived in caves and grim mountain fastnesses, Sam had read, and rode great shaggy unicorns to war.

Sounds like Rickon will fit right in!

+.+.+

Skagos meant "stone" in the Old Tongue. The Skagosi named themselves the stoneborn, but their fellow northmen called them Skaggs and liked them little.

lmfao.

+.+.+

Only a hundred years ago Skagos had risen in rebellion. Their revolt had taken years to quell and claimed the life of the Lord of Winterfell and hundreds of his sworn swords. Some songs said the Skaggs were cannibals; supposedly their warriors ate the hearts and livers of the men they slew. In ancient days, the Skagosi had sailed to the nearby isle of Skane, seized its women, slaughtered its men, and ate them on a pebbled beach in a feast that lasted for a fortnight. Skane remained unpeopled to this day.

This is only world building, right?

Imagine Rickon recruiting the Skagosi in the fight for Winterhell, hahaha.

+.+.+

"If the captain is good, we won't come that close. The currents are treacherous around Skagos, and there are rocks that can crack a ship's hull like an egg. But don't you mention that to Gilly. She's scared enough."

"Her and that squalling whelp of hers. I don't know which of them is noisier. The only time he ever stops crying is when she shoves a nipple in his mouth, and then she starts to sob."

Psst, Sam.

"Dalla's boy. He cries when he wants the teat. Mine . . . mine hardly ever cries. Sometimes he gurgles, but . . ." Her eyes filled with tears. - Samwell I, AFFC

+.+.+

The next day the rains began, and the seas grew rougher. "We had best go below, where it's dry," Sam said to Aemon, but the old maester only smiled, and said, "The rain feels good against my face, Sam. It feels like tears. Let me stay awhile longer, I pray you. It has been a long time since last I wept."

Cold rain will not give you pneumonia, but this is still stupid.

+.+.+

She rose at once, and together they got the old maester out of his wet clothes and buried him beneath a pile of furs. His skin was damp and cold, though, clammy to the touch. "You get in with him," Sam told Gilly. "Hold him. Warm him with your body. We have to warm him up." She did that too, never saying a word, all the while still sniffling. "Where's Dareon?" asked Sam. "We'd all be warmer if we were together. He needs to be here too." He was headed back up top to find the singer when the deck rose up beneath him, then fell away beneath his feet. Gilly wailed, Sam slammed down hard and lost his legs, and the babe woke screaming.

The next roll of the ship came as he was struggling back to his feet. It threw Gilly into his arms, and the wildling girl clung to him so fiercely that Sam could hardly breathe. "Don't you be frightened," he told her. "This is just an adventure. One day you'll tell your son this tale." That only made her dig her nails into his arm. She shuddered, her whole body shaking with the violence of her sobs. Whatever I say just makes her worse. He held her tightly, uncomfortably aware of her breasts pressing up against him. As frightened as he was, somehow that was enough to make him stiff. She'll feel it, he thought, ashamed, but if she did, she gave no sign, only clung to him the harder.

Samwell and Victarion competing for most inappropriate erection in AFFC.

I'm not spoiling it, you'll have to wait.

+.+.+

The captain broached a cask of firewine to fortify the oarsmen. Sam tried a cup and sighed as hot snakes wriggled down his throat and through his chest. Dareon took a liking to the drink as well, and was seldom sober thereafter.

Drinky, drinky.

+.+.+

As Blackbird rounded the south coast of Skagos, they spotted the wreckage of a galley on the rocks. Some of her crew had washed up on the shore, and the rooks and crabs had gathered to pay them homage. "Too bloody close," grumbled Old Tattersalt when he saw.

We'll hear about this galley again.

Jon feared for Sam and Maester Aemon. Cotter Pyke had written from Eastwatch to report that the Storm Crow had sighted the wreckage of a galley along the coast of Skagos. Whether the broken ship was Blackbird, one of Stannis Baratheon's sellsails, or some passing trader, the crew of the Storm Crow had not been able to discern. - Jon V, ADWD

I think it belongs to Salladhor Saan? I'm not sure. Seems like it might be important though.

The galleys Oledo and Old Mother's Son had been driven onto the rocks of Skagos, the isle of unicorns and cannibals where even the Blind Bastard had feared to land; the great cog Saathos Saan had foundered off the Grey Cliffs. "Stannis will be paying for them," Salladhor Saan had fumed. - Davos I, ADWD

+.+.+

Exhausted as they were, his rowers bent to their oars again, and the ship clawed south toward the narrow sea, till Skagos dwindled to no more than a few dark shapes in the sky that might have been thunderheads, or the tops of tall black mountains, or both. After that, they had eight days and seven nights of clear, smooth sailing.

Then came more storms, worse than before.

Was it three storms, or only one, broken up by lulls? Sam never knew, though he tried desperately to care.

It's three, but one is worse than the other two.

+.+.+

Gilly was sobbing. The babe was shrieking. And up top he could hear Old Tattersalt bellowing at his crew, the ragged captain who never spoke at all.

Psst, Sam.

"Dalla's boy. He cries when he wants the teat. Mine . . . mine hardly ever cries. Sometimes he gurgles, but . . ." Her eyes filled with tears. - Samwell I, AFFC

+.+.+

Sam was at his wit's end by then. He had almost gotten used to the smells, but between the storms and Gilly's sobbing he had not slept for days. "Isn't there something you can give her?" he asked Maester Aemon very softly, when he saw that the old man was awake. "Some herb or potion, so she won't be so afraid?"

"It is not fear you hear," the old man told him. "That is the sound of grief, and there is no potion for that. Let her tears run their course, Sam. You cannot stem the flow."

How can one man be so smart, and so stupid at the same time?

+.+.+

"Sam," the old man whispered, "you have two good eyes, and yet you do not see. She is a mother grieving for her child."

I guarantee there's some theory out there that Aemon and Syrio Forel are the same person.

+.+.+

It took Sam a moment to grasp what Aemon was suggesting. "That couldn't . . . she wouldn't . . . of course he's hers. Gilly would never have left the Wall without her son. She loves him."

"She nursed them both and loved them both," said Aemon, "but not alike. No mother loves all her children the same, not even the Mother Above. Gilly did not leave the child willingly, I am certain. What threats the Lord Commander made, what promises, I can only guess . . . but threats and promises there surely were."

"No. No, that's wrong. Jon would never . . ."

"Jon would never. Lord Snow did. Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others."

Yeah, and thank you for giving us Lord Snow, grandpa.

+.+.+

No happy choice. Sam thought of all the trials that he and Gilly suffered, Craster's Keep and the death of the Old Bear, snow and ice and freezing winds, days and days and days of walking, the wights at Whitetree, Coldhands and the tree of ravens, the Wall, the Wall, the Wall, the Black Gate beneath the earth. What had it all been for? No happy choices and no happy endings.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to howl and sob and shake and curl up in a little ball and whimper. He switched the babes, he told himself. He switched the babes to protect the little prince, to keep him away from Lady Melisandre's fires, away from her red god. If she burns Gilly's boy, who will care? No one but Gilly. He was only Craster's whelp, an abomination born of incest, not the son of the King-beyond-the-Wall. He's no good for a hostage, no good for a sacrifice, no good for anything, he doesn't even have a name.

I love how incensed he is.

Samwell communicating to the reader that Melisandre might burn Gilly's son has to be a good thing, right? Would George reveal the swap, then immediately tell you what's going to happen? I don't think so. It all has to be a cover-up for Shireen, yes? Sacrificing a baby and a child is so unnecessary.

+.+.+

The wind was in the sails, and to the north Sam could even see a scattering of stars, and the red wanderer the free folk called the Thief. That ought to be my star, Sam thought miserably. I helped to make Jon Lord Commander, and I brought him Gilly and the babe. There are no happy endings.

There are happy endings!

Today I learned the Thief is mostly likely Mars, or the ASoIaF equivalent. I have nothing else to say.

+.+.+

"No." Sam wiped his nose, and pointed south with a fat finger, toward the gathering darkness. "There," he said. No sooner had he spoken than lightning flashed, sudden and silent and blinding bright. The distant clouds glowed for half a heartbeat, mountains heaped on mountains, purple and red and yellow, taller than the world. "The worst isn't done. The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings."

"Gods be good," said Dareon, laughing. "Slayer, you are such a craven."

I love that he points at lightning right before saying that.

(and right before someone calls him craven.)

Final thoughts:

Please give me a Samwell x Gilly happy ending. Please?

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #affc #samwell ii

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a-song-of-art-and-fire · 2 years

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Ser Hyle Hunt, An Insolent Knight

"I am not Renly Baratheon, I confess it, but I have the virtue of being still amongst the living. Some would say that is my only virtue."

Hyle's an interesting character, and I find it hard to pin down. I think in a narrative sense he's there as the boring reliable guy that Brienne - as the protagonist of a romcom - almost marries, but at the last second she leaves him at the altar to run off with Jaime. Meaning Hyle should of course be played by James Marsden. However, I think GRRM can't help injecting a little too much personality and charm into Hyle and he kind of wins me over. Very interesting is that in the contest for Brienne, he was the only one who seemed to 'get' her, giving gifts fit for a knight where everyone else gave gifts stereotypical for a lady. I wonder if his cynical proposal is to cover up that he's more into her than even he would admit?

The mini is a DGS sculpt, it's a very nice straightforward knight, although the headband gives a vaguely 80's feel that I love. That hunt sigil was a real struggle, so I forced myself to do it 3 times! Finally his undergarments are red and green for his former Tarly loyalty.

#i should stress that whole very romanticised view is starting from a baseline of him almost certainly being a scumbag #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #miniatures #minis #a song of ice and fire #valyrian scrolls #dgs #hyle hunt #the reach

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musing-and-music · 2 years

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I'm grateful (that you are alive)

At last I promote my own fic for the @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange 2022! Written for the lovely @dreams-oath-bear , who asked for Podrick (book age) matchmaking his oathparents. I had lots of fun writing this story, and I'm happy I managed to put most of my ideas in it!

Rating T | 14 961 words | 4/4 chapters | Post ADWD, Post Lady Stoneheart, Hurt/Comfort, Matchmaker Podrick, There Was Only One Bath | Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne & Jaime Lannister, Podrick Payne & Brienne of Tarth, Josmyn "Peck" Peckledon, Pia, Hyle Hunt

Summary: After the encounter between Jaime Lannister and Lady Stoneheart, Podrick sees the way the knight behaves with his Ser-lady, and wonders about their relationship. He makes unexpected allies on the way to bring them together.

Read on AO3

#jaime x brienne #podrick payne #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne fic exchange #asoiaf #fanfiction #musing writes

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agentrouka-blog · 2 years

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In AFFC, Brienne remember that during her time in Highgarden, many knights tried to woo her with different favors. But she rejected them. Later she found out that they placing the bet who would get her maiden head. The bet was later revoke by Randal Tarly but she blamed Brienne too. Seems like Sansa situation surrounded by unwanted suitors who are trying to woo her so that they can claim her and she is rejecting them. Another parallel between Sansa and Brienne.

Very much so.

Big Ben Bushy was the first, one of the few men in Renly's camp who overtopped her. He sent his squire to her to clean her mail, and made her a gift of a silver drinking horn. Ser Edmund Ambrose went him one better, bringing flowers and asking her to ride with him. Ser Hyle Hunt outdid them both. He gave her a book, beautifully illuminated and filled with a hundred tales of knightly valor. He brought apples and carrots for her horses, and a blue silk plume for her helm. He told her the gossip of the camp and said clever, cutting things that made her smile. He even trained with her one day, which meant more than all the rest.

She thought it was because of him that the others started being courteous. More than courteous. At table men fought for the place beside her, offering to fill her wine cup or fetch her sweetbreads. Ser Richard Farrow played love songs on his lute outside her pavilion. Ser Hugh Beesbury brought her a pot of honey "as sweet as the maids of Tarth." Ser Mark Mullendore made her laugh with the antics of his monkey, a curious little black-and-white creature from the Summer Islands. A hedge knight called Will the Stork offered to rub the knots from her shoulders.

Brienne refused him. She refused them all. (AFFC, Brienne III)

It’s like Joffrey showering her with attention at the feast after the Hand’s Tourney, or the Tyrell’s doing the same, Tyrion’s empty protection, the Hound’s aggression, Marillion, Littlefinger, Harry... Sansa is swirling in a dance with a barrage of insincere suitors, just like Brienne.

But we know who won the melee at Bitterbridge and stood triumphant, a true knight.

Sansa will overcome them all.

#sansa stark #brienne of tarth #parallels

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weirdwoodeyes · 1 year

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Godspeed on grading, that sounds horrendous!! I'll have two for you: Top 5 Tiny Character Details (bonus points if it's for bg characters) and also, Top 5 House Banners!

- when tommen hangs out with loras so much that cersei is like is he gonna turn gay

- also tommen not myrcella crying when she leaves for dorne

- podrick calling hyle hunt ser kyle lol

- roose saying “jaime lannister sends his regards” for the drama only

- arya chewing her lip all the time just like robb did when he was younger

#did grrm intend that last one probably not but look in a search of ice and fire and tell me which characters chew their lips #you’ll see #mine #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls

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sansaissteel · 7 months

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This one goes out to stumpy

#ser hyle hunt #brienne tarth #briennexhyle #asoiaf

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rohanneofcoldmoat · 2 years

Photo

Ser Hyle Hunt

Artist: Daniel McCloskey

#hyle hunt #a feast for crows #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #asoiaf art #a song of ice and fire

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oathkeeperoathbreaker · 2 years

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Back on the road, the septon said, “We would do well to keep a watch tonight, my friends. The villagers say they’ve seen three broken men skulking round the dunes, west of the old watchtower.”

“Only three?” Ser Hyle smiled. “Three is honey to our swordswench. They’re not like to trouble armed men.”

“Unless they’re starving,” the septon said. “There is food in these marshes, but only for those with the eyes to find it, and these men are strangers here, survivors from some battle. If they should accost us, ser, I beg you, leave them to me.”

“What will you do with them?”

“Feed them. Ask them to confess their sins, so that I might forgive them. Invite them to come with us to the Quiet Isle.”

“That’s as good as inviting them to slit our throats as we sleep,” Hyle Hunt replied. “Lord Randyll has better ways to deal with broken men—steel and hempen rope.”

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “Is a broken man an outlaw?”

“More or less,” Brienne answered.

Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a find adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.

“Then they get a taste of battle.

For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .

“And the man breaks.

He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.”

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #the broken men monologue #septon meribald #brienne v affc

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