The Reader

He felt that he was losing himself in the glow of her cheeks, in the chapped rose of her lips. Never had he known anything so dazzling as the thrilling vitality bursting from their clumsy mouths, and never had he known anything so alive. He was utterly, brilliantly alive.

“My mother,” Jon said then. Her stone solemn face, her blue winter roses, her tears of blood, and a silver harp by her feet. The answer to the only question that had ever mattered to him. The only thing he’d ever wanted, the one thing he’d never have, the one person he’d dreamed of, all his life – and she’d been under his feet, in the crypts, all this time, just waiting for him, in the one place he’d always known. Rhaegar was not the only fool in the room.  “Would my mother have let you hide her away?”

Lyanna shoved him to the ground. Jaime shoved back. And before he knew it, Lyanna was hugging him hard enough to leave bruises, her eyes suspiciously dry yet full of a sadness that Jaime would be hard pressed to admit that he felt as well.

He hadn't thought of the bull's head helm in years, his sole source of pride when he first left King's Landing with Yoren, but the fact that Arya had it, that she got it back for him overwhelmed him in that moment. Gendry reached out, tracing the curve of her face with two rough fingertips, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do next, what he was even doing now.

They danced for half the night. He was clumsy on his feet and was not as quick-witted as his brother but there was a kindness in him, a spark in his gray eyes (beautiful eyes, how did she ever think them dull?) when he talked of Winterfell, of his brothers and particularly of his sister. In a strange way he reminded her of her own brother, all honor and duty.

Then to bed on the floor, cold oak and the horses groaning outside, and Mance would go off with a girl, and forget her name come morning, but Qhorin wouldn’t, Qhorin would always remember their names. 

“Do not tell me you have let yourself go weak-hearted here in the east. King-making has always been a bloody business. Do not tell me you are surprised now, child. Blood delivered Ned Stark to a throne he had no right to take. And blood will take it from him, sure as his damned winter will come, and blood will bring a new king to that same throne he left behind.”

Her back is to him, and he can read the tension in her shoulders; it is the way she stands before a battle, when she is anticipating a fight.

Alayne's white cheeks are slowly flushing pink, her lips parted speechlessly. Brienne barely dares breathe, feels like she is looking at some wild animal, a frightened young deer from the kingswood, that the slightest movement may chase her away, and the chance to reach her will be gone forever.

She expects Ned to attempt to kiss her.

“Come on Jon Snow. Chase me.”

“You are bold to come see me, my lord.” Catelyn spoke with none of the anger that burned inside her and all of the courtesy she thought she'd outgrown. Something deep inside her whispered that she could not keep much hidden from such a man. The way his eyes pierced through the darkness that concealed so much yet not them, sent a shiver down her spine, as if he knew things about her she did not. 

"You are the new bride." A voice in the corner of the room made her jump in surprise. It was a priest of the Drowned God, and she immediately calmed down upon seeing his long hair, wavy from seawater and adorned with seaweed. "The sea knows you," he said.

It is terribly thrilling, to let loose once more these thoughts too long locked away, and to find them waiting already upon another’s tongue. It feels good to be known. To be seen.