The first of many amusing Daenerys -> <- Jon chapter transitions.
The white wolf raced through a black wood, beneath a pale cliff as tall as the sky. The moon ran with him, slipping through a tangle of bare branches overhead, across the starry sky.
"Snow," the moon murmured. The wolf made no answer. Snow crunched beneath his paws. The wind sighed through the trees.
"Snow," the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff.Â
"Snow," the moon insisted.
The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air.
Did you know Ghost running away from the moon towards the sun is jonerys foreshadowing?
Far off, he could hear his packmates calling to him, like to like. They were hunting too. A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat, washing the blood from his side where the goat's long horn had raked him. In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. The hills were warmer where they were, and full of food. Many a night his sister's pack gorged on the flesh of sheep and cows and horses, the prey of men, and sometimes even on the flesh of man himself.
Eating endangered unicorns and the flesh of men? Arya and Rickon belong in a kennel.
The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained ⌠and one the white wolf could no longer sense.
The wolf's pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer.
Some people believe Grey Wind is still alive because of the wording.
Thankfully, I don't think anyone in this corner of the fandom needs to be reminded that Grey Wind's head was sewn onto Robb's headless corpse.
And Ghost knows he's dead.
The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. Ghost knows that Grey Wind is dead.Â
Four remained: Ghost, Nymeria, Summer, and Shaggydog. Summer, the direwolf beyond the Wall, is the one he can no longer sense.
"Snow." An icicle tumbled from a branch. The white wolf turned and bared his teeth. "Snow!" His fur rose bristling, as the woods dissolved around him. "Snow, snow, snow!" He heard the beat of wings. Through the gloom a raven flew.
It landed on Jon Snow's chest with a thump and a scrabbling of claws. "SNOW!" it screamed into his face.
I'm assuming this has nothing to do with the bird, and Ghost is showing aggression because Jon is annoyed.
The pillow struck the wall and burst, scattering stuffing everywhere just as Dolorous Edd Tollett poked his head through the door. "Beg pardon," he said, ignoring the flurry of feathers, "shall I fetch m'lord some breakfast?"
"Corn," cried the raven. "Corn, corn."
"Roast raven," Jon suggested. "And half a pint of ale." Having a steward fetch and serve for him still felt strange; not long ago, it would have been him fetching breakfast for Lord Commander Mormont.
Dolorous Edd Tollett is the next Lord Commander, confirmed.
Am I joking or am I being serious? You'll never know.
"Very good, m'lord, only Hobb's made boiled eggs, black sausage, and apples stewed with prunes. The apples stewed with prunes are excellent, except for the prunes. I won't eat prunes myself. Well, there was one time when Hobb chopped them up with chestnuts and carrots and hid them in a hen. Never trust a cook, my lord. They'll prune you when you least expect it."
ha HA, get it? (Rat) Cooks are pruning.
Burning dead children had ceased to trouble Jon Snow; live ones were another matter. Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings. The words had been murmured by one of the queen's men as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds. Jon had tried to dismiss them as his fever talking. Aemon had demurred. "There is power in a king's blood," the old maester had warned, "and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this."Â
This is referring to Stannis burning Mance and then Aemon Steelsong.
But I'm also reminded of Rhaego and Khal Drogo dying to wake the dragons. I know, wrong order.
Let's hope Jon waking precedes the Shireen and Stannis business. I know, wrong order.
"and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this."Â
The king can be harsh and unforgiving, aye, but a babe still on the breast? Only a monster would give a living child to the flames.
Did you know Shireen Baratheon and Dickon Tarly might be the exact same age? I found that interesting.
No, Dany thought, those are the bones of a child.
The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. Ghost knows that Grey Wind is dead. Robb had died at the Twins, betrayed by men he'd believed his friends, and his wolf had perished with him. Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father's ward ⌠but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped.Â
In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her.
How can Ghost sense/hear Nymeria's grey cousins, but can't sense/hear Bran and Rickon with Summer and Shaggydog?
He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.
He filled his basin from the flagon of water beside his bed, washed his face and hands, donned a clean set of black woolens, laced up a black leather jerkin, and pulled on a pair of well-worn boots.
Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to.
Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog's skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. - Prologue, ADWD
I can't tell if that's a coincidence or not. It was about dogs, not wolves.
That bird is too clever by half. It had been the Old Bear's companion for long years, but that had not stopped it from eating Mormont's face once he died.
Jon moved the cup aside and read the parchment once again. If I put my seal to this, I will forever be remembered as the lord commander who gave away the Wall, he thought, but if I should refuse âŚ
If I put my seal to this, I will forever be remembered as the king who knelt, he thought, but if I should refuse âŚ
"I think I can find the King's Tower by myself." Jon hated having guards trailing after him everywhere he went. It made him feel like a mother duck leading a procession of ducklings.
Jon had established himself in Donal Noye's modest rooms behind the armory. In time, no doubt, he would need larger quarters, but for the moment these would serve whilst he accustomed himself to command.
As he strode past them, a booming voice called after him. "BOY! YOU THERE! BOY!"
Boy was not the worst of the things that Jon Snow had been called since being chosen lord commander. He ignored it.
Listen, I'm all for kings and lords who remain grounded, but this can't happen. You're the Lord Commander, you can't sleep behind the armory, and you can't ignore some twat calling you boy.
"Don't call me the boy," Robb said, rounding on his uncle, his anger spilling out all at once on poor Edmure, who had only meant to support him. - Catelyn I, ACOK
The difference between growing up an heir and growing up a bastard.
In all fairness to Jon, he stands his ground with Stannis.
"How are you and your longbow getting on?"
"I found a good book about archery." Sam frowned. "Doing it is harder than reading about it, though. I get blisters."
"Keep at it. We may need your bow on the Wall if the Others turn up some dark night."
Sam learned how to teleport at the Citadel. Kidding, kidding.
Samwell and archery coming up in a non-Sam chapter. How is this not something? It's all over the place!
More guards stood outside the king's solar. "No arms are allowed in His Grace's presence, my lord," their serjeant said. "I'll need that sword. Your knives as well." It would do no good to protest, Jon knew. He handed them his weaponry.
By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. - Jaime II, AFFC
Diet Daenerys and Daddy Daenerys don't (didn't) allow blades near them. Do you think Daenerys will implement the same rule? Tough call.
Other than that, this is something to consider when predicting Middle Brittle's death. It will be difficult to get a knife near Stannis.
Jon took a knee. The king frowned at him, and rattled the parchment angrily. "Rise. Tell me, who is Lyanna Mormont?"
"One of Lady Maege's daughters, Sire. The youngest. She was named for my lord father's sister."
Stannis read from the letter. "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK. A girl of ten, you say, and she presumes to scold her lawful king."
A child giving Stannis Baratheon the middle finger? Hilarious.
House Mormont remaining staunchly loyal to House Stark despite all the anger Jorah Mormont has for Ned Stark? Priceless.
Maege Mormont had ridden south with Robb, Jon knew. Her eldest daughter had joined the Young Wolf's host as well. Even if both of them had died, however, Lady Maege had other daughters, some with children of their own. Had they gone with Robb as well? Surely Lady Maege would have left at least one of the older girls behind as castellan. He did not understand why Lyanna should be writing Stannis
I don't understand the purpose of this. Why am I reading this?
Obviously the text is telling me the daughters are not at Bear Island, but why? Why is that important?
He did not understand why Lyanna should be writing Stannis, and could not help but wonder if the girl's answer might have been different if the letter had been sealed with a direwolf instead of a crowned stag, and signed by Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. It is too late for such misgivings. You made your choice.
You made the right choice, and you will be rewarded for it.
and could not help but wonder if the girl's answer might have been different if the letter had been sealed with a direwolf instead of a crowned stag
Expect House Mormont to be on Team Stark during the fight for Winterfell. Hopefully they have more than 62 men.
"Two score ravens were sent out," the king complained, "yet we get no response but silence and defiance. Homage is the duty every leal subject owes his king. Yet your father's bannermen all turn their back on me, save the Karstarks. Is Arnolf Karstark the only man of honor in the north?"
Stannis snorted. "You spend your words as if every one were a golden dragon. I wonder, how much gold do you have laid by?"
"Gold?" Are those the dragons the red woman means to wake? Dragons made of gold?Â
Why does that feel like code? Is that Iron Bank foreshadowing?
"Perhaps his lordship would fancy a wildling wife," said Lady Melisandre. "Is this fat man married, Lord Snow?"
"His lady wife is long dead. Lord Wyman has two grown sons, and grandchildren by the elder. And he is too fat to sit a horse, thirty stone at least. Val would never have him."
It's The Fall of Flinging Filth at Val! The Fall of Flipping Off Val? I don't know, let me think about it.
"I would hope the truth would please you, Sire. Your men call Val a princess, but to the free folk she is only the sister of their king's dead wife. If you force her to marry a man she does not want, she is like to slit his throat on their wedding night. Even if she accepts her husband, that does not mean the wildlings will follow him, or you. The only man who can bind them to your cause is Mance Rayder."
Thank you. Please don't be an idiot and conveniently forget that.
The wildlings don't give a shit about Val.
The northmen don't give a shit about Val.
So maybe the fandom should ask themselves why this nothing character is getting Princess Key-to-the-North treatment.
"I have spent hours speaking with the man. He knows much and more of our true enemy, and there is cunning in him, I'll grant you. Even if he were to renounce his kingship, though, the man remains an oathbreaker. Suffer one deserter to live, and you encourage others to desert. No. Laws should be made of iron, not of pudding. Mance Rayder's life is forfeit by every law of the Seven Kingdoms."
Guess what the rest of this chapter will look like.
"The law ends at the Wall, Your Grace. You could make good use of Mance."
"I mean to. I'll burn him, and the north will see how I deal with turncloaks and traitors.Â
Do you think George ever forgets if he's writing Daenerys or Stannis?
And I have Rayder's son, do not forget. Once the father dies, his whelp will be the King-Beyond-the-Wall."
"Your Grace is mistaken." You know nothing, Jon Snow, Ygritte used to say, but he had learned. "The babe is no more a prince than Val is a princess. You do not become King-Beyond-the-Wall because your father was."
"Good," said Stannis, "for I will suffer no other kings in Westeros. Have you signed the grant?"
Stannis should now be aware that burning Mance's child is pointless. There's no hereditary monarchy, king's blood is not a thing to wildlings.
"I know that. It makes no matter. They are all we have. There are nineteen forts along the Wall, and you have men in only three of them. I mean to have every one of them garrisoned again before the year is out."
"I have no quarrel with that, Sire, but it is being said that you also mean to grant these castles to your knights and lords, to hold as their own seats as vassals to Your Grace."
"Kings are expected to be open-handed to their followers. Did Lord Eddard teach his bastard nothing? Many of my knights and lords abandoned rich lands and stout castles in the south. Should their loyalty go unrewarded?"
"If Your Grace wishes to lose all of my lord father's bannermen, there is no more certain way than by giving northern halls to southron lords."
He wants 16 castles. The audacity of Stannis Baratheon.
You guys told me he gets better after ACOK. I'm still waiting.
"How can I lose men I do not have? I had hoped to bestow Winterfell on a northman, you may recall. A son of Eddard Stark. He threw my offer in my face." Stannis Baratheon with a grievance was like a mastiff with a bone; he gnawed it down to splinters.
"By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa."
It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. - Sansa VI, ASOS
He's refusing her castle. . .
Lady Lannister, you mean?
Are you so eager to see the Imp perched on your father's seat? I promise you, that will not happen whilst I live, Lord Snow.
Props to @sherlokiness for pointing out Stannis will likely be dead before Tyrion and Daenerys take Dragonstone.
"Castle Black needs no useless mouths," Jon agreed. "I am sending Gilly south on the next ship out of Eastwatch."
Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck. "Gilly is giving suck to Dalla's son as well as her own. It seems cruel of you to part our little prince from his milk brother, my lord."
Careful now, careful. "Mother's milk is all they share. Gilly's son is larger and more robust. He kicks the prince and pinches him, and shoves him from the breast. Craster was his father, a cruel man and greedy, and blood tells."
Wait, wait. Does Melisandre know what he's planning? She does, doesn't she? Aren't you getting that vibe?
That's great news for Gilly's baby! That's terrible news for Shireen!
"Her own father got this child on her?" Stannis sounded shocked. "We are well rid of her, then. I will not suffer such abominations here. This is not King's Landing."
"I can find another wet nurse. If there's none amongst the wildlings, I will send to the mountain clans. Until such time, goat's milk should suffice for the boy, if it please Your Grace."
"Poor fare for a prince ⌠but better than whore's milk, aye."
ha HA, get it? Jon's mother wasn't a whore.
Jon ignored that. "I have given you fodder for your horses, and once the stair is done I will lend you builders to restore the Nightfort. I have even agreed to allow you to settle wildlings on the Gift, which was given to the Night's Watch in perpetuity."
"You offer me empty lands and desolations, yet deny me the castles I require to reward my lords and bannermen."
Uninspired. Lacking vision. No imagination. Doesn't have sex with his wife.
"I have a name, Your Grace."
"Snow. Was ever a name more ill-omened?"Â
"Then give me men, Sire. I will provide officers for each of the abandoned forts, seasoned commanders who know the Wall and the lands beyond, and how best to survive the coming winter. In return for all we've given you, grant me the men to fill out the garrisons. Men-at-arms, crossbowmen, raw boys. I will even take your wounded and infirm."
Stannis stared at him incredulously, then gave a bark of laughter. "You are bold enough, Snow, I grant you that, but you're mad if you think my men will take the black."
"They can wear any color cloak they choose, so long as they obey my officers as they would your own."
My gut tells me these castles will eventually go to the wildlings, but at the same time I'm seriously questioning how any of them could survive the Wall falling.
"Here is your sword in the darkness." Light rippled up and down the blade, now red, now yellow, now orange, painting the king's face in harsh, bright hues.Â
What do you think the nine-hundred-ninety-ninth might say about these castles? The sight of your head on a spike might inspire him to be more helpful." The king laid his bright blade down on the map, along the Wall, its steel shimmering like sunlight on water.Â
The map lay between them like a battleground, drenched by the colors of the glowing sword.
I thought long and hard about the image of a sword (dragon) laying along the Wall, and came up with nothing.
I think the point the author is trying to make is that if the sword was real, the map should be catching on fire.
"Lord Eddard was no friend to me, but he was not without some sense. He would have given me these castles."
I swear to god these will be the last words out of his mouth.
"For now. We will see how well you hold it." Stannis pointed at him. "Keep your ruins, as they mean so much to you. I promise you, though, if any remain empty when the year is out, I will take them with your leave or without it. And if even one should fall to the foe, your head will soon follow. Now get out."
Laws should be made of iron, except for when it comes to what I want.
When I gaze into the flames, I can see through stone and earth, and find the truth within men's souls. I can speak to kings long dead and children not yet born, and watch the years and seasons flicker past, until the end of days."
"Are your fires never wrong?"
"Never ⌠though we priests are mortal and sometimes err, mistaking this must come for this may come."
Always got to sneak that in there.
"I have seen you in my fires, Jon Snow."
I'm not suggesting anything here, I'm taking this opportunity to remind everyone that Melisandre can see threats to her life in her flames. If she is killed, high probability she'll see it first.
The red woman laughed. "No one betrayed you, onion knight. I saw your purpose in my flames." - Davos III, ASOS
He had not lied to his king's men, about that or any of it. "The red woman may see what we intend," he warned them.
"We should start by killing her, then," urged Lewys the Fishwife. "I know a place where we could waylay her, four of us with sharp swords . . ."
"You'd doom us all," said Davos. "Maester Cressen tried to kill her, and she knew at once. From her flames, I'd guess. It seems to me that she is very quick to sense any threat to her own person, but surely she cannot see everything. If we ignore her, perhaps we might escape her notice." - Davos VI, ASOS
"You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world." Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. "This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon.Â
One point for Melisandre "waking" Jon.
I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?"
You might remember Melisandre was interested in Bowen Marsh back in ASOS.
The others were contenders for the Old Bear's command, all but Bowen Marsh, who had withdrawn from the contest but remained castellan and Lord Steward. Sam did not understand why Melisandre should seem so interested in him. - Samwell V, ASOS
I will repeat the same thing I said then. If she knows who is a threat to Jon's life and is not telling him, I will kill her myself.
You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold.
"It is always cold on the Wall."
"Then you know nothing, Jon Snow," she whispered.
Oh my goodness, spooky season.
Queen Daenerys and King Stannis trying to rule two kingdoms who don't want them in back-to-back chapters, but sure, tell me all about the Daenerys and Jon paralleled journeys.
