winter is coming

@pscentral event 15: favorite ship(s) ✦ Starkling Ships || Jon&Dany, Arya&Gendry, and Robb&Jeyne

NEEDLEHEART WINTER || Lyanna Stark

Arya Stark + Horror Themes

Once the Long Night was brought to an end by the united efforts of humanity headed by Arya, Bran, Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion, a bleeding Westeros needed rebuilding. Though the realm remained united under Queen Daenerys and King Bran, Arya retained her title of Queen in the North just as the Dornish retained their titles of Princess and Prince. As she worked to heal the North, Arya also took her sister into her service as a lady-in-waiting. Sansa never asked to play the game of thrones and under Arya’s protection, she need never play that game again. The proximity to power without the responsibility of administration allowed Sansa to live the life she dreamed with art, beauty, and pageantry as Arya concentrated on the practicalities of ruling.  

Racebent ASOIAF Ladies || Zoë Kravitz as Daenerys Targaryen, Amandla Stenberg as Arya Stark, Sophie Okonedo as Cersei Lannister, Lashana Lynch as Margaery Tyrell, Stephanie Levi-John as Catelyn Stark, Zethu Dlomo as Asha Greyjoy

“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.” – Bran IV, A Game of Thrones

Back at Winterfell, they had eaten in the Great Hall almost half the time. Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know the men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.” At Winterfell, he always had an extra seat set at his own table, and every day a different man would be asked to join him. One night it would be Vayon Poole, and the talk would be coppers and bread stores and servants. The next time it would be Mikken, and her father would listen to him go on about armor and swords and how hot a forge should be and the best way to temper steel. Another day it might be Hullen with his endless horse talk, or Septon Chayle from the library, or Jory, or Ser Rodrik, or even Old Nan with her stories. Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father’s table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her “Arya Underfoot,” because he said that was where she always was. – Arya II, A Game of Thrones

The greatest living knight was Ser Barristan Selmy, Barristan the Bold, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Father had promised that they would meet Ser Barristan when they reached  King’s Landing, and Bran had been marking the days on his wall, eager to  depart, to see a world he had only dreamed of and begin a life he could  scarcely imagine.

“i dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,“ he said. "it was a green dream, so i knew it was true. a crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. “Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming. Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” he heard his own voice saying, small and far away. And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.” Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die. Death reached for him, screaming. Bran spread his arms and flew. Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him. “I’m flying!" he cried out in delight. - Bran III, A Game of Thrones

I am always proud of Bran.

“you are the lord in winterfell now,” robb told him […] “you must take my place, as i took father’s, until we come home." 

I wore many names

“I didn’t catch anything,” Bran said, “but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will we ever see Jon again?”

Catelyn was shaking. It was the grief, the cold, the howling of the direwolves. Night after night, the howling and the cold wind and the grey empty castle, on and on they went, never changing, and her boy lying there broken, the sweetest of her children, the gentlest, Bran who loved to laugh and climb and dreamt of knighthood, all gone now, she would never hear him laugh again. Sobbing, she pulled her hand free of his and covered her ears against those terrible howls. “Make them stop!” she cried. “I can’t stand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must, just make them stop!”

“You some kind of cripple?” asked the short woman. Bran flared. “I'm Brandon Stark of Winterfell, and you better let go of my horse, or I’ll see you all dead.” - Bran V, A Game of Thrones