And Then We Danced Free Stream 2019 year 1280p at Dailymotion Without Membership

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/ Release Date=2019 / 8,3 / 10 / rating=3837 Vote / Director=Levan Akin / Star=Ana Javakishvili. I love the ABBA team. See what technique, technical equipment, mixers, 40 years ago! I love Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Finland. Regards from southern lands from Poland. Solo nos queda bailar Free streaming sur internet. Updated 2020-01-27 7:16 am MST. Updates since the initial post appear in italics. Beginning in the mid to late 2000s, the church started experiencing a large increase in the number of active, faithful, even multigenerational members leaving the church. This can largely be attributed to three major factors: 1) an increased availability and ease of access to historical information that undermines the truth claims and correlated narrative of the church; 2) increasing distance between the social progress of much of the developed world and the entrenched retrogressive views of the church on issues like LGBTQ+ equality, women's empowerment, race, and dealing with issues of sexual abuse; and 3) emergence of social networks (message boards, forums, Facebook, podcasts, etc. that validate the legitimate concerns of doubting/questioning members and provide a "soft landing" and exit strategies for those whose belief has been challenged by the first two factors. Highlighting the severity of the crisis, in the fall of 2011 then-church historian Marlin Jensen declared to a Utah State University religious studies class, Maybe since Kirtland, weve never had a period of - Ill call it apostasy, like were having now. There are no signs that the decline has slowed in the eight-plus years since that statement; in fact if anything it has accelerated, to the point that in the church's stronghold of Utah the number of members is actually declining in many places, despite strong overall population growth. In 2014, renowned exmormon podcaster John Larsen prophesied, The battle's over. The church has lost the war. They're changing things so quickly now. the church] knows it has a big problem, and we're going to quickly reach the tipping point, when the exit will be starting to happen so quickly that the church will just start grasping, they'll start doing a hyper-reform, they'll start reforming everything they can that they don't have to hold onto doctrinally. Mormon Expression episode 281, 12 min mark, edited for clarity) Fulfilling the John Larsen prophecy, in recent years church leaders seem to have taken a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to address these issues and attempt to stanch the hemorrhaging of the types of members that hitherto would have formed the backbone of the church. It has been fascinating to watch the flailing dance of church leadership as they do their damndest to square the circle of Mormon doctrinal paradoxes and find a way out of the corner they've painted themselves into. We are living through history, and I wanted to document all the major efforts the church has undertaken so we can all step back and enjoy the show. Here, in rough chronological order, I list the steps that have been taken and give a grade on how effective they have been. Emergency "Rescue" firesides (and others) 2010, 2015) One of the highest profile apostasy events in recent history was when Hans Mattsson, an Area Authority in Sweden, went public with his doubts in the early 2010s. To respond to a wave of doubt and apostasy in Sweden, the church sent historian Marlin Jensen and assistant historian Richard Turley to Sweden for a closed-door fireside to frankly discuss the members' doubts, which was recorded by an attendee (audio can be found in the links on the MormonThink page, linked to from the heading above. Apostle Tom Perry was also sent, promising he "had a manuscript in his briefcase that, once it was published, would prove all the doubters wrong. According to Mattsson, the document was never produced. A tri-stake meeting termed the Boise Rescue was held in Boise, Idaho in June 2015. Dallin Oaks and Richard Turley were sent to confront apostasy stemming from followers of Denver Snuffer and Rock Waterman (although as usual the leaders never directly mentioned the obvious reason they were there, and denied the Snuffer/Waterman connection. As can be heard from the audio of these meetings, leaders continue to equivocate and emphasize having faith in the face of evidence, and they have been unhelpful for members in faith crisis. Effectiveness: C- Addressing the issues: C+ Lower mission age (October 2012) This move was sold as "hastening the work" to get people excited for a final big push as Jesus prepares (as he has been doing for the past two thousand years) to come back to Earth. In reality it was most likely an attempt to lock in young people to a Mormon life before they go off to college and fall away. Initial predictions (most prominently by Jeff Holland) were that there would be a large uptick in the number of missionaries followed by a new baseline of 100, 000+ missionaries. The uptick did happen, but it peaked at around 88, 000 in the fall of 2014 and has since declined to 65, 000. For comparison, the pre-surge number of missionaries in 2012 was around 58, 000. Talk of "hastening the work" has also declined in step. It should also be noted that the number of convert baptisms per missionary has declined each year since the lowered age. Was this move effective? It certainly got members excited for a while, but it also resulted in less mature missionaries being sent out, and data shows that more missionaries are coming home early than ever before (with the caveat that this trend started before the age change. The "hasten the work" refrain became a recurring theme from conference talks down to local testimony meetings for several years, but is rarely heard anymore. It's not clear that fewer return missionaries are leaving the church than before the age change, and it fails to address any of the three root problems I describe above. Effectiveness: C- Addressing the issues: F The Faith Crisis report (2013) Between 2011 and 2013, a team of researchers including Greg Prince, John Dehlin, and Travis Stratford conducted a study of church members experiencing faith crises. A report summarizing the research and a collection of personal experiences of the subjects of the study was given to Dieter Uchtdorf. The stunning report shows the level of detail that church leadership knows about the problematic issues and about the personal and interpersonal trauma experienced by members in faith crisis. The report is well worth reading in full. It was reportedly kept "on file at the Churchs “restricted” research library (with only top leaders able to access the sensitive reports. p. 138) where few people knew about it until it was leaked in October 2013. The report shows unequivocally that top leadership knows exactly the problems with the correlated narrative and the harm it is causing members by continuing to downplay, spin, hide, and deny these problems. All subsequent church action can be viewed through the lens of this report. Gospel Topics essays (2014) One of the biggest moves for the church was releasing a series of essays in 2014 addressing specific controversial issues in history and doctrine, including the historicity and translation of the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham, polygamy, racism, violence in early Mormonism, and multiple contradictory first vision accounts by Joseph Smith. The essays are undated and unattributed to any authors to easily preserve plausible deniability. They are not widely publicized, are made intentionally difficult to find on the website, and to my knowledge the Q15 has never directly acknowledged their existence in a formal setting such as conference. The intent is clearly not to actually resolve the controversies for members who have discovered the less savory side of church history and are seeking answers, but rather just to have something "out there" to make members who have struggling family/friends feel like the issues have already been resolved. Additionally, the essays are extremely disingenuous in the evidence they present and the way they use footnotes, as has been discussed in many podcasts, blog entries, and reddit posts. The essays have been effective for some members, but have also been a gateway to further study and loss of faith among many others, including its own missionaries. Effectiveness: C+ Addressing the issues: C- Face to face" events with leaders (2014-present) Beginning in 2014, leadership began holding these events in which a small group of youth or young adults meet with a prominent church leader or celebrity in a more informal setting than a traditional fireside talk. Sometimes they involve a Q&A session, but invariably the questions are prescreened and vaguely answered. They ostensibly try to address some of the "hard issues. occasionally answering a question about social positions of the church or troubling history, but never getting into specifics. Effectiveness: C Addressing the issues: D- Changed institute curriculum (2015) The church revamped its institute curriculum in 2015, requiring four "cornerstone" courses that are built around themes rather than following the four standard works linearly. Some controversial issues are addressed, and the manuals do include the gospel topics essays as part of the suggested reading for some of the lessons. I actually took the "Foundation of the Restoration" course myself, but at least in my class the gospel topics essays weren't actually brought up or discussed in class. Effectiveness: C Addressing the issues: D Exclusion policy and reversal (November 2015 - April 2019) In a truly stunning series of events, in November 2015 a new policy barring the children of gay parents from being baptized and automatically branding couples in a same-sex marriage as "apostate" was quietly inserted into the secret leadership-only handbook, but quickly leaked to the public. A massive backlash led to a confusing series of walk-backs and "clarifications. including an awkward, staged "interview" with Todd Christofferson (whose brother is gay. The news roiled members and directly led to an estimated 1, 500 resignations at a protest event and followed by a steady stream of more resignations, while shaking the faith of and deeply hurting countless other members. A few months after the change, in January 2016, then-Elder Russel Nelson declared that the policy change was a revelation from God to then-President Tom Monson. The policy needlessly hurt members, damaged family relationships, and confused everyone. Bowing ever so slightly to public pressure, the policy was amended without apology or explanation in April 2019. The children of gay parents can now be baptized at a local bishop's discretion, and confusingly, immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way. In a sign of the pressures and criticism he faced, Russell Nelson gave a defensive, gaslighting explanation speech to BYU students five months after the policy "adjustment" for an excellent and thorough analysis of the speech, see the Radio Free Mormon podcast episode. Effectiveness: F- Addressing the issues: F- Ceasing the statistical report at April conferences (April 2018) The church stopped its traditional annual statistical report over the pulpit after the last one in April 2017. Instead, it now publishes the numbers online (see the 2017 and 2018 reports. No explanation was given for the change, but surely the declining numbers of missionaries and slowed growth overall were disincentives to draw attention with an over-the-pulpit report. Another possibility is that this was another hobby horse of Russell Nelson's, as the change was made for his first conference as president. Effectiveness: F- Addressing the issues: F- Saints. a new history of the church (2018) This is a planned four-volume new history of the church, with the first volume being released in 2018. The intent here is much the same as the Gospel Topics essays—rewriting church history to include the controversial aspects that can't be swept under the rug anymore, but presenting them only as much as necessary and in as faith promoting an angle as possible. The book is written at an eighth grade reading level, and it shows. As an added bonus, yet another must-have book is purchased by thousands of faithful members. Effectiveness: B Addressing the issues: C- Deemphasizing the Mormon moniker (2018) Shortly after taking the wheel as president of the church, in 2018 Russel Nelson announced the church would stop using the word "Mormon" to refer to itself or its members. He also begged the press to stop using the word by issuing a style guide, which most major publications continue to ignore. Church websites and materials were rebranded and members were reprogrammed to correct friends and neighbors when they say "Mormon. In the next conference, Russel threw the not-long-deceased prophets who approved and orchestrated the "I'm a Mormon" campaign under the bus when he called use of the term a "major victory for Satan. It's clear that this has been a long-time hobby horse for Nelson over which he had sparred with more senior leaders, as evidenced by his 1990 talk on the subject which was directly rebutted by then-president Gordon Hinckley at the very next conference, saying that "We may not be able to change the nickname, but we can make it shine with added luster. Millions of out-of-breath Mormons Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have shrugged and gone along with Nelson. Effectiveness: F Addressing the issues: F Two-hour church and new curriculum (2019) In the October 2018 general conference, and to the immense relief of closeted nonbelievers everywhere, church leaders announced that Sunday meetings would be shortened from three hours to two hours beginning in 2019. At the same time, they released a new correlated Sunday School curriculum with a focus on home study. Members were instructed to use the extra hour on Sunday to do a kind of homeschool church and study the lesson for the coming week, then continue to study the lesson daily. This move was sold as a way to build stronger faith and more resilient testimonies as The World continues to get more and more wicked. The more likely reason was to accommodate areas of the world where the church is less established and to allow for smaller wards with fewer callings as the church continues to decline. The new curriculum created an opportunity to yet again revise the narrative and whitewash/deemphasize certain teachings. This seems to be a "rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic" move. Effectiveness: D Addressing the issues: F Temple changes (2019) Among the most substantial doctrinal/policy changes are in recent memory are those to temple ordinances and policy, although despite leaders' insistence that the doctrine and ordinances never change, it is certainly not unprecedented. The biggest change was in the substance of the endowment ceremony, in January 2019, rewording the covenant script to put women on a more equal footing with men and removing the requirement for them to veil their faces. Soon after, a longstanding policy requiring couples married in a civil marriage to wait for one year before they could be sealed was amended; couples can now be married civilly with non-member family and friends and then have a sealing without any waiting period. It's impossible to overstate the family discord caused by the previous policy; by changing it the church implicitly admits that there was no "doctrinal" reason for it in the first place, and it was undoubtedly held as a control and shaming mechanism. Additionally, in October 2019 some minor policy changes were made to allow women to be witnesses in temple ordinances. An insubstantial change to the temple clothing was also made just recently. Again, the most significant change was revamping the endowment ceremony. This is a positive step for Mormon reformation, but obviously undermines the authority and doctrinal infallibility claims of church leaders, although they continue to pretend that this is just a minor "clarification" that doesn't change the covenant itself. They also refused to apologize or acknowledge that anything was wrong with the previous ceremony. Effectiveness: B+ Addressing the issues: B+ Excommunications (recurring) Several high-profile doubters and would-be reformers have been excommunicated in the last few years, including: Geneticist and author Simon Southerton (August 2005) Spiritual leader Denver Snuffer (September 2013) Feminist activist Kate Kelly (June 2014) Mormon Stories founder John Dehlin (Feb 2015) Mormon originalist and blogger Rock Waterman (June 2015) CES Letter author Jeremy Runnells (April 2016) to be more accurate, Jeremy was not excommunicated but rather resigned his membership at his kangaroo court after secretly recording it) Anti-sexual abuse activist Sam Young (September 2018) Podcaster and former bishop Bill Reel (December 2018) I may have missed some; feel free to comment and I will add to this list) The goal of excommunication is to fence off antagonists and invalidate their voice, as TBMs can easily brush aside the words of an excommunicated member who has "lost the spirit. However, religious researcher and journalist Jana Riess has shown that this tactic has mixed results, with nearly 60% of Mormons saying they are "very" or "somewhat" troubled by excommunications of "feminists, intellectuals, and activists. History has also shown that after enough time passes, the church often eventually adopts the ideas of activists it excommunicates, claiming it is revelation from God without mentioning or crediting the work of said activists. Effectiveness: C Addressing the issues: F- Announcing more temples (2018 - ongoing) Few things excite the masses like a temple announcement near their home or mission location. Despite clear evidence of slowed membership growth, and after a decrease in new temple announcements during the last few conferences of Thomas Monson's tenure, the church has paradoxically announced a large number of temples in the last few conferences: April 2016 (4) October 2016 (0) April 2017 (5) October 2017 (0) April 2018 (7) October 2018 (12) April 2019 (8) and October 2019 (8. However, it should be noted that an announced temple is not a temple under construction, and the church has no public guidelines on the timeframe or how certain an announced temple is to be built. According to an unofficial tracking website, there are currently 35 announced temples, but only 14 of those have an actual site announced. Some, like the "Russia Temple. do not even have a city announced and sound more like wishful aspirations than concrete plans. Five are in temple-saturated Utah, where the church is able to follow the example of Joseph Smith and capitalize on increased property values after a temple announcement. Having temples nearby does increase pressure on members to keep all the rules (especially tithing) so they can conform for ward temple nights and youth trips, but does nothing to address the rot at the roots of the church. Effectiveness: D+ Addressing the issues: F- Other minor changes Combined Elders quorum with High Priests (April 2018) Home teaching changed to ministering (April 2018) Deacons ordained in January of 12th year; girls enter Young Women in January of 12th year and can participate in temple trips (January 2019) New youth programs (2020) These changes are probably largely corporate in nature, serving to streamline the institution, hierarchy, and bureaucracy. The new youth programs are a response to the recent progressive changes in the Boy Scouts of America, which now allows gay leaders and girls (although still excluding atheists, that last bastion of American untouchables. So there you have it. There is little evidence that these combined efforts have had much effect on the crisis of the church's own making. The exmormon subreddit subscriber count was at around 23, 000 when I joined in late 2015, and it has continued to grow at a steady pace, recently passing 150k. Thus there's no doubt the church will continue grasping at straws and adding to this list. Is there anything I'm missing here or corrections needed? Also I'm curious for the members of this sub, did any of these tactics delay or accelerate your exit (whether it was a full break it just mentally out) ETA: Thanks for everyone's responses (and the gold etc. I won't have a lot of time to work on this today, but there are some important suggestions in the comments that deserve treatment here, and I will do so when I have a chance. Some have suggested a website or sticky. I would love to keep this available as a living document to update the church continues its hyper reform, and I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do that.

Solo nos queda bailar Free stream new albums. I saw this film in Paris, where it was widely acclaimed. I came out of the cinema with a sense of this is always going to happen; the persecution and the destruction of gay people's lives. I was not uplifted by it and although persecution against gays is acute in Russia and the former USSR I feel that this persecution is like an advanced cancer spreading through the whole body politic of these countries. But the film deserves all the accolades that it can get, despite the feeling that I do not find it a particularly interesting film. The acting of the two main protagonists was good, but no better than many other LGBTQ films I have seen. It is bad to compare, but I would urge viewers to watch the Russian film ' Stand ' which is tougher, richer in cinematic terms and deserved much more attention in the West than it got. But I will buy the DVD when it eventually surfaces and study its nuances further. There is an element in the scenario which I will not give away that reminded me of ' Call Me By Your Name ' and the pain was just as acute and far more terrible to watch due to the fact that Georgia can kill if you do not conform, and the West does not. Also the sexual love was far more explicit and frantically expressed in ' And Then We Danced ' than in the other film. It also looked authentic and bravo to the actors for achieving that. It put the sexuality into homosexuality and for that alone, against all reservations I admire and respect it. It is precisely the sexuality that makes killers of so-called normal society and the hatred of so-called ' normal ' men.

Ba-ba-ba, ba, ba. Yes, the pizza guy dressed more regular than a in the shorts delivering pizza at this millionaire ladies home is handsome... This happened to me a while ago, in my native germany. I shop for the weekends, and anyone who knows that the german "wochenendeinkauf" means shopping like a demented doomsday prepper know what I mean. So, I was trying to shop for the weekend, and since the girlfriend kind of works retail (Thus, massive respect for the retail workers out there, I get to be on the reccieving end of all the crazy stories, and the same way you don't fuck with a sysadmin because he makes the computers run, you don't fuck with retail people, because they hand you food) I decided that it was time to shine as an adult and do all my shopping alone and without help. I wore kind of a piss yellow polo shirt, because everyone has got to do their laundry at one time or an other. I know, such adult, very wow. Now, I am over 6 '9' tall, if google does not lie, and look the part, blonde beard and blue eyes and all, but I have one weakness. One critical weakness. Helping little old ladies. Because I can go to the gymn, and lift till my arms give out, and I will reccieve a passable boost to my self esteem, but when a little old lady asks, can you get this one kilo bag of flour" and then proceeds to make the big eyes and compare me to superman and say that I look like they expected hercules to look, or some other stuff, yea, that puts a grin on my face that won't leave for a week. So, I am in the store, helping the occasional asian elderly lady out, and doing my shopping, when I hear "ahem" behind me. OVER my headphones. Thinking nothing bad, I just turned my head to the left and to the right, shrugged, and continued my shopping. What follows next is a yank on my in ear headphones, so they fall out of my ears, and then a tirade of epic proportions from a peroxide blonde (1) wearing clothes that would look good on her daughter, but look ridicullous on her (2) fake tanned (3) and excessively jewlery wearing (4) person with a karen haircut (5, a nice 5 pointer. I just let her rant and rave, while trying to actually figure out what she wants, and she lays into me. I am apparently dumb, lazy, shiftless, good for nothing, undereducated, and all those good words, she has tried to get my attention for the last 30 minutes, she saw me helping all those little old ladies, and she cleverly deduced, I must have been a store employee. So, normally, I am very reserved with public confrontations, because I have a certain size, and when I start yelling, it allways looks bad. But I also work as a sysadmin. And while my patience with stupid unsers is higher then normal, when it snaps, it snaps. Peoples mail accounts get deleted, and so forth, and then we have to wait 5 weeks for the backups to arrive, andf sortry, your computer just broke, we got you the new windows 95 machine to do your work on, while we try to fix it. So, I am thinking, well, she probably has had a bad day, her fake tan seeped into her brain, I know, Let's be good to rearded people, clear this up, and be on my way. water under the bridge, right? Except then she poked me in the chest, her shrill yapping accentuating that I now needed to jump like her little slave, poke poke poke poke. sysadmin mode from hell activated. "I don't work in this store, and I will not help you. Get a manager if you are that disabled. I naively thought that this was the end of it, and put my headphones back in. But left one out, as the constant stream of yapping disappeared. This alerted me to the karen returning, this time with a manager in tow. A pimply faced youngling without a beard, that looked intensely uncomfortable, while trying to get a word in. She demanded I get fired on the spot for being rude to her? I turned to the manager, and quit on the spot, going that I "would at least have expected him to care if one of his best employees was treated like that by a customer" that I was "in half a mind to hand back the shirt right now, on the floor, and shop bare chested" and that since I "no longer worked for him, I was now free to shop in the alcohol section during daytime" and I was intending to get good and drunk tonight. As an added bonus, I went down to karens eye level, and added, that if she decided to lay hands on me again, and the store security did not immediatelly tase her or throw her out of the store, I would see this as an active attack and would react appropriately, doing "the job" for them, as a last thank you for all of those paychecks, and because not an other of the abused workers here could lay a hand on her. And then I gave her my best "I am five minutes away from turning into a berserker, you feel lucky, bitch" smile. OOh, there was screaming afterwards, and accusations of being overly violent, but I just put my headphones in, turned around, and lumbered back to the liquor section. 10 minutes later, the manager is back, this time alone. I unplug my headphones, and ask him what he wants. He says, he is very sorry, but he has looked, and he knows everyone, but apparently, they don't have me on file as an employee, so was I actually sure I worked here? Nope, just thought instead of putting you in an awkward situation, I would do what was expected of me, and say what everyone in earshop was thinking. End of the song and dance was, He accompanied me to the register, and personally applied his managerial discount to my wochenendeinkauf. Let's just say I do intend to return to this store.

Solo nos queda bailar Free streaming. The language sounds a little bit like dutch. Legion A transport ship left Last Jersey with two hundred armored soldiers in its belly. It flew at the maximum allowed speed over the courier roads toward the pit. Trey Lewis sat, strapped to his seat, listening as several dozen Rebecca's were singing while doing inventory checks. Trey leaned over to the a long haired Rebecca sitting on his left. "You speak English. Still cleaning her rifle she looked and smiled at him. "We speak all languages. She looked back down at her rifle and continued diligently cleaning. Trey continued. "I heard that you, I mean, all of you can predict the future. That true. She stopped and looked up at him. The singing coming from dozens of lungs stopped. In unison all the Rebeccas onboard spoke. "We live we die, we know what we have done. We live this flight from sixty two separate points of view. The fact that we are all here and know what is going to happen should be a clear sign to you about your own future. They all smiled at him, and then went back to singing and tending their weaponry. The Rebecca on his left smiled at him again and said. "If it makes you feel better, you die a hero. Trey laughed. "Typical women. Sister's the lot of you, always playing mind games. He laughed louder. After a moment he laughed himself quiet, and whispered to himself. "Everyone knows there's no heroes in hell. The Rebecca's had all finished their inventory evaluations some time ago, but continued singing. The song went from melodious and cheerful to deep and worrisome. Trey watched as all of them raised their hands up and covered their faces in unison. Wisely, he did the same as a shell impacted the main cabin. The breech caused an air pressure fluctuation that drew out everything not fastened down. Those who were unlucky to not shield their faces were quickly scratched up and impaled by small objects flying by. Lights flashed in the cabin. The quick descent caused everyone to rise up weightlessly in their seats. The Rebecca's still sung, but now it was a strong thrumming war chant. The impact caused Trey to vomit. He was looking down at himself covered in puke, focused. All around him Rebecca's were unstrapping, and drawing weapons. Trey wiped spittle from his chin and looked at it. It was red and pink, with clear swirls. He watched as a small bubble popped in it. Beside him a Rebecca cut down a large tendril reaching in through the breech. Trey heard it like it was hundreds of miles away. The ship was creaking as something outside began to crush it. Then he snapped to. Trey looked up as the long haired Rebecca that was sitting next to him was busy cutting him out of his straps. "Snap to it Trey. It's time to dance. She said with a smile, and then disappeared out through the breech. Trey Lewis stepped out into chaos. The sky was filled with fire. Giant amalgams of flesh flew on massive stretched skin wings. They shifted, contorting in numerous directions at once, and enveloped any craft that got to close. Bullets and cannons rippled across their flanks. The feathers would fall, burning, and crash into the sea of bodies below. Trey looked around. Soldiers of all types were fighting on the field. Tall lumbering machine gun toting demons fired streams of fire into tendril after tendril that rose up from the ground. Lanky skeletal swordsmen danced through the field fending off their feather counterparts blow for blow. Trey looked up as a massive meaty beast rose up, a thousand hungry faces eying him. The Rebecca's took to it enmasse. Several drew its attention with cover fire. Others drew swords and hacked at its side. It sloughed off section after section as cords were cut. Then one took a knee to steady herself as she fired a crystalline rocket into an opening in the feather's torso. The blue green explosion shook the beast. Sharp shards erupted out of its skin, and it fell to the ground. Trey knew what to do. He pulled his radio off his belt. "I need a quarantine crew. He looked down at the readout on his arm. "Sector 501, quarter Delta. The radio crackled back. "Roger that. Dispatching crews. Please provide cover fire. The grapple copters flew down in several sets. The first set would attempt to lift the quarantined feather, while the others would provide cover fire as well as remain ready in case the two attempting were downed. Trey hammered a lashing hook into the crystal, as several other soldiers did the same on the other sides. All around were Rebecca's singing and dancing in full combat. Fiends continuously rose up from the corpse matter below, and they continuously held them at bay. Within moments the Feather was lifted up and out of the hole. Trey stood and watched with a smile. A Rebecca punched him in the shoulder. "Come on! There is a crystal road over the ridge! We're going into the storm. Trey nodded and began running. Along the edge of the road were makeshift barricades. People were crouched behind the empty canisters and stones, firing out into the sea of corpses. The members of the downed transit ship filed in through a hole in the barricade and joined the legion of man. The barricades guarded a supply line. Along the center of the road personnel, munitions, and weaponry were being marched onward to the storm. Trey fell in line with the Rebecca's. He knew to watch the lead one's right hand. When she began to lift her weapon up, so did he and so did the other Rebecca's. Immediately a feather would rise up over the barricade only to meet air filled with hot steel and crystalline rockets. The Rebecca's still sang. Their melody was accented with the thumps of crystal juice mortars being fired into the sea. It went in time with the bursts of fire trumpeting out of the rifles of those guarding the barricades on either side. Trey could feel a confidence as they marched even though he knew he was going to die. The storm, a massive force of swirling air and debris, roared. It drowned out the song, but Trey could still feel it them singing. Road guards had established a leyline that ran into the storm. A woman in body armor took a ring clip and fastened Trey's belt to the line. She motioned him to go, and he did. He charged headlong into the storm. He could feel his feet beating off beats on the smooth crystal road. Every other foot fall seemed to float as the storm tried to pick him up. Around him he could see soldiers in protective gear hiding behind blast shields, shooting out into the dark winds. The crackling bursts of light would give him sight of the next few feet of where to walk. He trudged onward, following the long hair of the Rebecca in front of him. They broke free of the storm, entering the eye. Around him was carnage. Several roads made it in, but they didn't get far. In here the feathers were winning. Trey looked, and only the road he was on got anywhere near the beam of light in the center. Rebecca turned and smiled at him. "Time to use up all these bullets they gave us Trey. Trey smiled back. "Sure is. The barricades were few and far between here. Tendrils rose up and snatched the defenders at will. The Rebecca's arrival changed that. They knew where a tendril would rise, and snapped them off at the base. The lead Rebecca initiated a chorus and they turned. A feather had risen up and took an arm off one of the sisters. They fired, shredding it apart. A crystal rocket caught it in its core before it made it back into the bonemeal. It fell over, frozen. Several battlemechs and hundreds of soldiers rallied around them as they made their way through the battlefield. One by one a Rebecca would fall, and with her knowledge the feather would fall also. They reached the edge of the road, and pushed onward into the bonemeal. Their push had made an opening, and a sprayer truck made it behind them and began extending the road as they moved onward. A tendril snaked through the corpses and pulled a Rebecca under. Blasts erupted from the bones and skin as she struggled. Up above a Rebecca manning a gun ship fired missiles into the area where she disappeared. A large crater remained as the smoke cleared, and in it writhed a feather trying to reassemble itself. The gunship fired a crystalline missile at it and moved on. They marched over a hill. A fast moving serpent of a feather attacked. It ripped apart a mech, but was quickly hewn apart by five sword wielding Rebecca's and the dozens of blades guard who had taken up hunting with them. Their unit had become an arrow, punching into the sea toward the stairs. Battalions circled, providing backup, as they marched through. The blade guard went where Rebecca's pointed, and chopped up anything that rose. But as they neared the stairs the feathers grouped together. A tendril would shoot out, injuring someone, but without revealing the underlying feather's position. They would hit in bulk, and run before the crystal rockets could hit them. Then the ground shook. The sea erupted as corpses all about them rose up to fight. Long dead soldiers with rusted weapons began fighting Trey. He shot three in the head, only to have them keep marching. He switched to his sword and began swinging, looking for the tendril. He hit one in the foot, and it fell limp. He witnessed the tendril retract from the foot he had just severed. He repeated, hitting foot after foot, letting the bodies fall. "Hit the feet! The feather's like to come up through the feet. He looked around to see who had heard him, but everyone had been scattered, overwhelmed. A knot rose up in his throat. The skeletal faces of the long dead surrounded him as he swung. "Ya, going to die a fucking hero. Women. He sighed and continued swinging. Several bodies around him erupted in fire. The long haired Rebecca reached through and grabbed him. She was wounded. Blood streamed from her scalp and into her right eye. She handed him her rocket launcher as she pulled free her sword. "Run Trey! Get up onto the stairs. She turned her back to him and began swinging, hewing limbs and torsos apart. Trey looked for a second, and then made for the stairs. A bullet impacted a walking corpse to his side. Three people were fighting a multi armed feather, he ducked around them and continued. "This is hopeless. We just keep feeding them. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck. He shouted as he ran. Dodging tendrils meant for other men, and jumping over the struggling corpses of others he made it to the steps. He ran up ten steps before he turned around to look. The road ended at the battalion, the battalion ended in a sea of tendrils ripping them apart, and the sea ended at the steps that Trey now stood on. Trey readied the RPG and began scanning for targets. There were many, and none seemed worthy of the one rocket he had. He saw a woman in a saw armed machine pulled out and ripped apart by tendrils, with no feather core in sight. He watched an army of puppeted bodies hack three men apart. Everywhere he saw Rebecca's fighting, and every one that he saw they would look back into his eyes only to die in their momentary loss of concentration. Fear gripped Trey, immobilizing him. Then he felt it. The ground hummed. The sound resonated through him, similar to the song of the Rebecca's, but more primal. He turned and looked up the stairs. The beam of light erupted from the temple above thrust high into the sky above like a molten laser. He could see the storm swirling around it like a mighty hurricane swiveling on a center pole. To his left an airship crashed into the sea of bones and erupted in an explosion. The force knocked him back to his senses and he rushed up the stairs. He trudged up them, one after the other, the RPG bouncing on his shoulder. He gained his breath at the top and looked in through a set of massive doors at a large bestial man, several times larger than a normal man, that had two sharpened wing bones extending from his back. The creature had risen a sword over its head and was about to strike a wounded man who was lying on the ground. Trey took up the RPG and without though, he fired.

 

Solo nos queda bailar Free stream. Solo nos queda bailar Free streams. This is part 3 in a multi-part series about our favorite direwolves. The other posts in the series are here: Part 1: Lady and Sansa, Part 2: Grey Wind and Robb, Part 4: Summer and Bran, Part 5: Shaggydog and Rickon, Part 6: Ghost and Jon This can also be viewed on my blog, with nicer formatting and images: Nymeria and Arya, Recall this SSM. Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves? GRRM: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely. Q: Yes, I know that Lady is dead, but assuming they were all alive and all the children as well, would all the wolves have bonded to the kids as Bran and Summer did? GRRM: Bran and Summer are somewhat of a special case. A note about the order of this series:  I am doing this analysis in order of what I think is the increasing magical power of the direwolves.  We have 4 wolves with eyes of molten gold, so Ill be focusing on them first and then finishing with our green-eyed and finally our red-eyed direwolf.  The order chosen within the group of the first four wolves was chosen in order of the increasing magical strength of their Stark children.  Arya, I think is stronger in her magic than Sansa and Robb, for a variety of reasons.  Bran, of course seems to be extremely strong.  While its possible that Arya is equal to him in magical potential, the general consensus is that Bran is exceptional, so well give him the edge, and cover him in part 4. A Game of Thrones - Nymeria with then Cut-off from Arya Several themes from our prior volumes continue here with Nymeria and her bond to Arya, including: Bad things happening when theyre separated The wolves mirroring their childrens personality Shadowing/protecting Belonging to the pack / hunting Being affectionate when theyre together Obedience / disobedience These are all in evidence for the pair while together in AGoT, where they spend such a short time together before being separated.  In later volumes, we see that even though they are separated, the bond is still strong between them.  We start in Arya I where Nymeria had been tied up while Arya was with Princess Myrcella.  Immediately we see their affection for each other and their closeness, save when they are forced to be separated as Cat has done here.  Mirroring of their personalities is evident even in the wolfs name, Nymeria, a figure of female empowerment and independence.  The scene closes Nymeria shadowing Arya, checking off each of the themes listed above save one which comes later in the chapter.  Nymeria's bond with Arya developed quickly indeed. A Game of Thrones - Arya I Nymeria was waiting for her in the guardroom at the base of the stairs. She bounded to her feet as soon as she caught sight of Arya. Arya grinned. The wolf pup loved her, even if no one else did. They went everywhere together, and Nymeria slept in her room, at the foot of her bed. If Mother had not forbidden it, Arya would gladly have taken the wolf with her to needlework. Let Septa Mordane complain about her stitches then. Nymeria  nipped eagerly at her hand as Arya untied her. She had yellow eyes. When they caught the sunlight, they gleamed like two golden coins. Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea. That had been a great scandal too. Sansa, of course, had named her pup “Lady. ” Arya made a face and hugged the wolfling tight. Nymeria licked her ear, and she giggled. By now Septa Mordane would certainly have sent word to her lady mother. If she went to her room, they would find her. Arya did not care to be found. She had a better notion. The boys were at practice in the yard. She wanted to see Robb put gallant Prince Joffrey flat on his back. “Come, ” she whispered to Nymeria. She got up and ran, the wolf coming hard at her heels. Next, they encounter Ghost and Jon, and we see pack interaction.  Nymeria is wary of the larger Ghost, but they seem to get along.  Arya and Jon in turn are of one mind about the unfairness of being outcast.  The theme of the call of the pack is evident where Nymeria begins to follow Ghost and / or Jon before realizing that she and Arya are not going along with them.  The pack bond/instinct is strong in these wolves. They arrived, flushed and breathless, to find Jon seated on the sill, one leg drawn up languidly to his chin. He was watching the action, so absorbed that he seemed unaware of her approach until his white wolf moved to meet them.  Nymeria stalked closer on wary feet. Ghost, already larger than his litter mates, smelled her, gave her ear a careful nip, and settled back down. […] Nothing is fair. Jon said. He messed up her hair again and walked away from her, Ghost moving silently beside him.  Nymeria started to follow too, then stopped and came back when she saw that Arya was not coming. Reluctantly she turned in the other direction. A Game of Thrones - Arya I The pair encounter their brothers again when Ghost and Jon visit to make their farewells and to give Needle to Arya. Nymeria seems happy to see Ghost this time, mirroring Arya and Jons relationship.  Nymeria is also fetching specific items for Arya to pack.  Is this an example of them sharing one mind in a near warging?  This type of cooperation is reminiscent of Grey Wind and Robb much later in the story.  At the end Arya commands Nymeria to guard, and she obeys without issue.  The tension between obedience and independence is important to Nymerias story.  IMHO she does obey but is more independent and questions authority as a mirroring to Aryas personality. A Game of Thrones - Jon II Arya was in her room, packing a polished ironwood chest that was bigger than she was. Nymeria was helping. Arya would only have to point, and the wolf would bound across the room, snatch up some wisp of silk in her jaws, and fetch it back. But when she smelled Ghost, she sat down on her haunches and yelped at them. […] “ I dont think shed like Nymeria helping, either. ” The she-wolf regarded him silently with her dark golden eyes. “Its just as well. I have something for you to take with you, and it has to be packed very carefully. ” […] Wary but excited, Arya checked the hall. “ Nymeria, here. Guard. ” She left the wolf out there to warn of intruders and closed the door. By then Jon had pulled off the rags hed wrapped it in. He held it out to her. Aryas eyes went wide. Dark eyes, like his. “A sword, ” she said in a small, hushed breath. – A Game of Thrones – Jon II We dont get another Arya POV until they arrive in Kings Landing, so now Sansa takes up the Nymerias tale.  This eventful chapter draws a stark contract between the pairs of sisters as we already discussed in part I.  We see the opposite side of the obedience independence con here.  As Arya brushes her, Nymeria struggles, mirroring Aryas independent streak.  She is also mirroring Aryas own mood who doesnt seem to enjoy the process either.  We also see snipes of how close the pair are in Aryas dialogue. A Game of Thrones – Sansa I She found Arya on the banks of the Trident, trying to hold Nymeria still while she brushed dried mud from her fur. The direwolf was not enjoying the process. Arya was wearing the same riding leathers she had worn yesterday and the day before. […] Arya shrugged. “ Hold still, ” she snapped at Nymeria, “Im not hurting you. ” Then to Sansa she said, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion. ” […] Arya was still going on, brushing out Nymerias tangles and chattering about things shed seen on the trek south. “Last week we found this haunted watchtower, and the day before we chased a herd of wild horses. You should have seen them run when they caught a scent of Nymeria. ” The wolf wriggled in her grasp and Arya scolded her. “Stop that, I have to do the other side, youre all muddy. ” […] Arya shrugged. “I didnt go far. Anyway,  Nymeria was with me the whole time. I dont always go off, either. Sometimes its fun just to ride along with the wagons and talk to people. ” […] Arya ignored her. She gave a hard yank with the brush. Nymeria growled and spun away, affronted. “Come back here! ” “Theres going to be lemon cakes and tea, ” Sansa went on, all adult and reasonable. Lady brushed against her leg. Sansa scratched her ears the way she liked, and Lady sat beside her on her haunches, watching Arya chase Nymeria. “Why would you want to ride a smelly old horse and get all sore and sweaty when you could recline on feather pillows and eat cakes with the queen? ” “I dont like the queen, ” Arya said casually. Sansa sucked in her breath, shocked that even Arya would say such a thing, but her sister prattled on, heedless. “She wont even let me bring Nymeria. ” She thrust the brush under her belt and stalked her wolf. Nymeria watched her approach warily. “A royal wheelhouse is no place for a wolf, ” Sansa said. “And Princess Myrcella is afraid of them, you know that. ” “Myrcella is a little baby. ” Arya grabbed Nymeria around her neck, but the moment she pulled out the brush again the direwolf wriggled free and bounded off. Frustrated, Arya threw down the brush. “Bad wolf! ” she shouted. […] She turned to walk off, but Arya shouted after her, “They wont let you bring Lady either. ” She was gone before Sansa could think of a reply, chasing Nymeria along the river. This cute interaction represents the last time Arya and Sansa get along so far in the story.  Unfortunately, our next scene is where Joffrey attacks Arya and Mycah.  Note that Arya already mentioned him earlier, as did Sansa with her mention of Aryas bruises.  He was clearly a close friend by this point. The blame in this encounter is very important, as it determines the future of both wolves and sets the mood for the girls interactions for the remainder of this volume.  Lets be clear: Joffrey starts it, attacks Mycah, and sadistically tortures/threatens him.  Then Arya hits him with a stick to protect her friend, warranted.  She strikes him again as Mycah escapes, also warranted to enable the escape.  Then Sansa says that Arya threw a rock at him, which would be taking it too far, but WE DONT ACTUALLY KNOW IF ARYA WAS AIMING AT JOFFREY.  We only get Sansas opinion that Arya missed and hit the horse.  She may have been trying to hit the horse, I think this is quite plausible, as the author makes sure to mention it going toward Mycah in the same sentence.  Joffrey “slashes” at her with his sword, a completely shocking act.  Arya is truly frightened and retreats, but ends between Joffrey and a tree.  Then and only then does Nymeria act, judiciously, grabbing at Joffreys arm, not his throat (which might be warranted.   She then immediately obeys Arya when called off.  All in all, Nymeria is nothing short of a hero here.  Arya again does the right thing, deescalating by removing “Lions Tooth” from the equation. Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the princes head, and then everything happened at once before Sansas horrified eyes. Joffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring curses. Mycah ran for the trees as fast as his legs would take him. Arya swung at the prince again, but this time Joffrey caught the blow on Lions Tooth and sent her broken stick flying from her hands. The back of his head was all bloody and his eyes were on fire. Sansa was shrieking, “No, no, stop it, stop it, both of you, youre spoiling it, ” but no one was listening. Arya scooped up a rock and hurled it at Joffreys head. She hit his horse instead, and the blood bay reared and went galloping off after Mycah. “Stop it, dont, stop it! ” Sansa screamed. Joffrey slashed at Arya with his sword, screaming obscenities, terrible words, filthy words. Arya darted back, frightened now, but Joffrey followed, hounding her toward the woods, backing her up against a tree. Sansa didnt know what to do. She watched helplessly, almost blind from her tears. Then a grey blur flashed past her, and suddenly Nymeria was there, leaping, jaws closing around Joffreys sword arm. The steel fell from his fingers as the wolf knocked him off his feet, and they rolled in the grass, the wolf snarling and ripping at him, the prince shrieking in pain. “Get it off, ” he screamed. “Get it off! ” Aryas voice cracked like a whip. “Nymeria! ” The direwolf let go of Joffrey and moved to Aryas side. The prince lay in the grass, whimpering, cradling his mangled arm. His shirt was soaked in blood. Arya said, “She didnt hurt you … much. ” She picked up Lions Tooth where it had fallen, and stood over him, holding the sword with both hands. “You leave him alone! ” Sansa screamed at her sister. Arya whirled and heaved the sword into the air, putting her whole body into the throw. The blue steel flashed in the sun as the sword spun out over the river. It hit the water and vanished with a splash. Joffrey moaned. Arya ran off to her horse,  Nymeria loping at her heels. – A Game of Thrones – Sansa I The encounter ends with Nymeria, having proven her bonafides as a protector, re-assuming her role as Aryas shadow.  Sadly this is not meant to continue. In the aftermath of the debacle, Ned takes up the tale. Prior to the quote below Arya calmly tells her tale, but grows angry and wild at Joffrey and then Sansas lies.  I do wonder if her bond to Nymeria is affecting her behavior here.  Preston Jacobs has recently done a series suggesting that the presence of a bonded beast may drive more aggressive behavior in the Starks.  After Cersei determines that Lady is to be executed, Arya grows wild again in defense of her pack.  Sansa, by contrast, throws Nymeria under the bus. A Game of Thrones – Eddard III “Lady wasnt there, ” Arya shouted angrily. “You leave her alone! ” “Stop them, ” Sansa pleaded, “dont let them do it, please, please, it wasnt Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you cant, it wasnt Lady, dont let them hurt Lady, Ill make her be good, I promise, I promise …” She started to cry. The chapter ends with Ladys death, but before that Ned sees the hound return with Mycahs body, but not before the author cruelly lets us think it was Nymeria. There was something slung over the back of his destrier, a heavy shape wrapped in a bloody cloak. “No sign of your daughter, Hand, ” the Hound rasped down, “but the day was not wholly wasted. We got her little pet. ” He reached back and shoved the burden off, and it fell with a thump in front of Ned. Bending, Ned pulled back the cloak, dreading the words he would have to find for Arya, but it was not Nymeria after all. It was the butchers boy, Mycah, his body covered in dried blood. He had been cut almost in half from shoulder to waist by some terrible blow struck from above. – A Game of Thrones – Eddard III Nymerias survival becomes plain when she returns to the story in ACoK.  For the remainder of A Game of Thrones, Arya mourns her loss and Mycahs while Sansa continues to blame Arya and Nymeria for all her woes.  This is poignant in Neds following chapter.  The event at the fords split wide the cracks that were in these relationships, while Nymeria was abandoned.  We must assume she felt lost, just as Arya is in this chapter. A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV Outside, wagons and riders were still pouring through the castle gates, and the yard was a chaos of mud and horseflesh and shouting men. The king had not yet arrived, he was told. Since the ugliness on the Trident, the Starks and their household had ridden well ahead of the main column, the better to separate themselves from the Lannisters and the growing tension. Robert had hardly been seen; the talk was he was traveling in the huge wheelhouse, drunk as often as not. If so, he might be hours behind, but he would still be here too soon for Ned's liking. He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell. A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV We can assume that a weak bond still exists between Nymeria and Arya during the ensuing chapters of AGoT.   Recalling our 5 themes of the wolf bonds, three are torn away during this time.  Nymeria is stripped of her role as a protector, can no longer be affectionate with Arya, and has lost her pack.  As to bad things happening when the wolves are separated from their humans, that is obvious with the Starks experiences in Kings Landing.  She probably does still mirror Aryas moods still to some degree.  Arya finally has another POV where we get see those moods up close. Nymeria returns to her thoughts when shes angry with Sansa, practicing with Needle and considering running away.  Nymeria certainly would want to rejoin Arya still at this point as Arya considers things; all those thoughts would probably call you her.  This is definitely an indication of the bond.  Its also interesting that Aryas bond to Jon is recalled when she thinks of Nymeria.  Some of their happiest times together were spent also with Ghost and Jon. A Game of Thrones - Arya II She went back to the window, Needle in hand, and looked down into the courtyard below. If only she could climb like Bran, she thought; she would go out the window and down the tower, run away from this horrible place, away from Sansa and Septa Mordane and Prince Joffrey, from all of them. Steal some food from the kitchens, take Needle and her good boots and a warm cloak. She could find Nymeria in the wild woods below the Trident, and together they'd return to Winterfell, or run to Jon on the Wall. She found herself wishing that Jon was here with her now. Then maybe she wouldn't feel so alone. That last line is particularly heart wrenching.  Nymeria must also be extremely lonely at this point.  One must wonder when she begins to form her new pack.  Our answer may be later this same chapter when Ned then brings Nymeria up again, giving Arya some well-needed parental advice.  He can see like we do how close they had been and how Arya missed Nymeria.  Then Ned lectures her about the importance of pack especially for the direwolves of Stark.  One must wander if Sansas road may have been easier if hed given her the same lecture. “We all lie, ” her father said. “Or did you truly think Id believe that Nymeria ran off? ” Arya blushed guiltily. “Jory promised not to tell. ” “Jory kept his word, ” her father said with a smile. “There are some things I do not need to be told. Even a blind man could see that wolf would never have left you willingly. ” […] “The hard cruel times, ” her father said. “We tasted them on the Trident, child, and when Bran fell. You were born in the long summer, sweet one, youve never known anything else, but now the winter is truly coming. Remember the sigil of our House, Arya. ” “ The direwolf, ” she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees against her chest, suddenly afraid. “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. ” – A Game of Thrones – Arya II Nymeria only comes up once more in AGoT when Arya was following Varys and Illyrio.  Id suggest this is an example of the bond as well.  She needed her protector, but she also needed confidence.  Nymeria couldnt provide the former, but she may have helped with the latter. A Game of Thrones - Arya III She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as Syrio might have, and wondering if she'd ever see light again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night air. A Game of Thrones - Arya III A Clash of Kings - The Great She-Wolf and The Shapechanger Survivor A Clash of Kings introduces wolf dreams and really explores the pack through tales of the great pack that Nymeria has developed.  We also learn for sure in this volume that separation has not broken their bond.  Their personalities continue to match, even if they may never again have the opportunity to be affectionate to each other.  Arya doesnt have Nymeria close to her as her protector, but Nymeria and the threat of wolves loom large in this book, as she has formed a new pack.   Before this though, our author reminds us of her original pack.  We start in Bran I where Nymeria and the rest of the pack are mentioned.  We must wonder how much Nymeria can sense her siblings, as Summer seems have the power to do. Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two. two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together? Who can know the mind of a wolf. Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why they howled. Bran's lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and his duties left him little time for idle questions. A Clash of Kings - Bran I In the ACoK Arya chapters, the word “wolf” is used 28 times.  The word “wolves” is used 30 times. Of these mentions, the following categorizations can be made (see table below. Multiple mentions of the same subject in a paragraph or in consecutive paragraphs not counted multiple times. Young Wolf (mention or description) 6 Nymeria (mention or description) 4 Eddard  (mention or description) 1 Arya sees a pack 1 Mention a pack 14 Dream 2 Stark banner 1 Heard howls 7 Lady (mention or description) 2 Arya (mention or description) 6 Total Mentions 43 GRRM certainly wants us not to forget that Nymeria is running wild in the Riverlands.  The tales indicate that her great pack is running rampant, terrorizing some in the Riverlands.  Arya know immediately that it is Nymeria, but shes ashamed of having thrown stones at her, so no reunion is forthcoming. “I heard the same thing from my cousin, and shes not the sort to lie, ” an old woman said. “She says theres this great pack, hundreds of them, mankillers. The one that leads them is a she-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell. ” A she-wolf. Arya sloshed her beer, wondering. Was the Gods Eye near the Trident? She wished she had a map. It had been near the Trident that shed left Nymeria. She hadnt wanted to, but Jory said they had no choice, that if the wolf came back with them shed be killed for biting Joffrey, even though hed deserved it. Theyd had to shout and scream and throw stones, and it wasnt until a few of Aryas stones struck home that the direwolf had finally stopped following them. She probably wouldnt even know me now, Arya thought. Or if she did, shed hate me. 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 mothers arms. When the tale reached Lord Mooton, him and his sons swore theyd 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. ” – A Clash of Kings – Arya II That last tall tale had drawn Aryas ire, and she was soon thrown out of the inn by Yoren before she unmasked herself.  To contrast the villagers tales, Arya is not harmed when encountering wolves face to face in the next chapter, indicating that Nymeria is exercising some protection over her still (Nymeria herself is not seen.   The only other explanation would be that Arya herself unwittingly exercised some small amount of telepathic communication with this wolf.  The result is the same, though; the bond / warging ability is still there and beginning to strengthen, though Arya still seems to think Nymeria is “gone” as she discusses with Yoren. One of them came padding out from under the trees. He stared at her, and bared his teeth, and all she could think was how stupid shed been and how Hot Pie would gloat when they found her half-eaten body the next morning. But the wolf turned and raced back into the darkness, and quick as that the eyes were gone. Trembling, she cleaned herself and laced up and followed a distant scraping sound back to camp, and to Yoren. Arya climbed up into the wagon beside him, shaken. “Wolves, ” she whispered hoarsely. “In the woods. ” “Aye. They would be. ” He never looked at her. “They scared me. ” “Did they? ” He spat. “Seems to me your kind was fond o wolves. ” “Nymeria was a direwolf. ” Arya hugged herself. “Thats different. Anyhow, shes gone. Jory and I threw rocks at her until she ran off, or else the queen would have killed her. ” It made her sad to talk about it. “I bet if shed been in the city, she wouldnt have let them cut off Fathers head. ” – A Clash of Kings – Arya III Next, Arya is warned of Lorchs men arriving by wolves; could it be Nymerias pack? Probably, because she dreamt the howl that woke her. She must have slept, though she never remembered closing her eyes. She dreamed a wolf was howling. and the sound was so terrible that it woke her at once. Arya sat up on her pallet with her heart thumping. “Hot Pie, wake up. ” She scrambled to her feet. “Woth, Gendry, didnt you hear? ” She pulled on a boot. All around her, men and boys stirred and crawled from their pallets. “Whats wrong? ” Hot Pie asked. “Hear what? ” Gendry wanted to know. “Arry had a bad dream, ” someone else said. “No, I heard it, ” she insisted. “A wolf. ” “Arry has wolves in his head, ” sneered Lommy. “Let them howl, ” Gerren said, “theyre out there, were in here. ” Woth agreed. “Never saw no wolf could storm a holdfast. ” Hot Pie was saying, “I never heard nothing. ” “It was a wolf, ” she shouted at them as she yanked on her second boot. “Somethings wrong, someones coming, get up! ” – A Clash of Kings – Arya IV Later, when Jaqen approached her about her 3 deaths-owed, he wakes here from a wolf dream as well.  I do wonder if she was howling in this dream, and this is part of how he realized her identity. These are the first 2 wolf dreams in her story, but certainly not the last. Arya was dreaming of wolves running wild through the wood when a strong hand clamped down over her mouth like smooth warm stone, solid and unyielding. She woke at once, squirming and struggling. "A girl says nothing. a voice whispered close behind her ear. "A girl keeps her lips closed, no one hears, and friends may talk in secret. Yes. A Clash of Kings - Arya VII When the Boltons take over Harrenhal, she reminds us all of her bond with Nymeria by taking her name.  She also prays to the old gods to make her strong like a wolf. She bit her lip, groping for another name. Lommy had called her Lumpyhead, Sansa used Horseface, and her fathers men once dubbed her Arya Underfoot, but she did not think any of those were the sort of name he wanted. “ Nymeria, ” she said. “Only she called me Nan for short. ” […] Arya went to her knees. She wasnt sure how she should begin. She clasped her hands together. Help me, you old gods, she prayed silently. Help me get those men out of the dungeon so we can kill Ser Amory, and bring me home to Winterfell. Make me a water dancer and a wolf and not afraid again, ever. – A Clash of Kings – Arya IX The next time she prays to the old gods for guidance she hears what is likely Nymerias howl and remembers her fathers advice about being with your pack.  This is a strong indication of their bond.  This gives her the courage to take Gendry and Hot Pie as pseudo-pack and go searching for her family at Riverrun. 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. A Clash of Kings - Arya X That concludes Nymerias story in ACoK, save for a reminder from Jon about the pack while he contemplates his own imminent death by wildling. His questions about how the wolves sense each other foreshadow the exploration of the magic of the direwolves of Winterfell coming next in ASoS. It will be good to feel warm again, if only for a little while, he told himself while he hacked bare branches from the trunk of a dead tree. Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever. Will he howl for me when I'm dead, as Bran's wolf howled when he fell? Jon wondered. Will Shaggydog howl, far off in Winterfell, and Grey Wind and Nymeria, wherever they might be. A Clash of Kings Jon VIII Overall Arya and Nymeria's bond remains relatively strong through ACoK, which was somewhat unexpected.  Arya's physical proximity allows it to grow, while Nymeria still is trying to fulfill her role as protector. A Storm of Swords - The Shadow Pack Leader and the Lone Wolf The concept of pack continues to be explored in ASoS as the magic of the wolves is further explained.  We get to see through Summers eyes how he senses his packmates.  Summer has a close enough bond to Shaggy that he knows hes near, but he could only sense the others “sometimes”.  I speculate that this may be partly because Jon and Ghost are beyond the wall.  Still, he knows Lady is dead (the only one who has died at this point.   His “sister” is mentioned as well in the bottom paragraph, though its unclear if he meant Lady or Nymeria.  In other parts of the series Ill discuss the idea that some of the direwolves may have more magic than others. He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too. His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind. Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back. all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice. These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered. A Storm of Swords – Bran I In the ASoS Riverlands chapters (Arya, Cat, Jaime) we get a second helping of mentions of Nymerias wolf pack prowling the Riverlands.  This is coupled with discussion of Hot Pie and Gendry being her pack now, reminding us that even though Arya is now several times a killer, she is still also a lost little girl searching for her family.  The word “wolf” is used 52 times; the word “direwolf” is used 18 times the word "wolves" is used 57 times. Of these mentions the following categorizations can be made. Note: Multiple mentions of the same subject in a paragraph or in consecutive paragraphs not counted multiple times. Young Wolf (mention or description) 13 Arya (mention or description) 21 Nymeria Mention (or description) 1 Grey Wind (mention or description) 10 Other Stark Wolves (mention or description) 5 Northmen (mention or description) 20 See a pack 4 Mention A pack 7 Dream 9 Stark's described as Wolves/Skinchangers 8 Stark banner / sigil 7 Heard howls 8 Arya thinks of herself as a wolf a lot in this volume.  We also get a lot of mentions of Robb and his army as wolves.  Direct mentions of Nymeria are sparse, but we do get many mentions of her pack, and we get Nymeria/Aryas first POV wolf dream in her first chapter, followed by many more wolf dreams.  Several dreams are described to us in the chapters, but at one point she mentions dreaming of wolves every night. The first dream is foreshadowed by Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry encountering parts of Nymerias pack but being left unmolested by them. A Storm of Swords - Arya I Gendry's mare lost her footing in the mud once, going down hard on her hindquarters and spilling him from the saddle, but neither horse nor rider was hurt, and Gendry got that stubborn look on his face and mounted right up again. Not long after, they came upon three wolves devouring the corpse of a fawn. When Hot Pie's horse caught the scent, he shied and bolted. Two of the wolves fled as well, but the third raised his head and bared his teeth, prepared to defend his kill. Back off. Arya told Gendry. "Slow, so you don't spook him. They edged their mounts away, until the wolf and his feast were no longer in sight. Only then did she swing about to ride after Hot Pie, who was clinging desperately to the saddle as he crashed through the trees. […] 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, were going too slow, theyll 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 Boltons 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. […] 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. Continued in Oldest Reply.

Solo nos queda bailar Free stream.nbcolympics. During the movie, it has three different stories, but it does not focus on any one of them, instead it just tell a little of each, and then drops ending with no conclusion.
Afterwards it felt like you had seen a weaker version of. Call me by your name. br> This film is doubtful to win best foreign movie, if even getting nominated. Solo nos queda bailar Free stream of consciousness. “No obtendrás lo que necesitas, pero amor, te daré lo que quieres. ” #querico ! Come get your honey lol. Christmas Day at my parents house. Everyone was invited, but not everyone was expected—or wanted. Everyone came. The most unwanted, the one to whom sending in invitation was always a personal battle of will vs courtesy, is my uncle Brian. Uncle Brian is foul-mouthed, inconsiderate, slovenly, and had seen the bottom of a bottle more than his own children—who hadnt been invited. To be honest, I dont think my mother even had their contact information. Theyd put an understandable effort in distancing themselves from my uncle and those associated with him since leaving their home.  But my uncle was still family, and—to me, at least—a pretty funny guy; someone with whom I could joke freely, without the sensitivity and uptight sensibilities that most people in my family exhibited. There were seven in total: Myself, my mother and father, my sister—sixteen, ten years younger—my uncle Brian and his wife—to everyones surprise she still hadnt left him—and my girlfriend, Zoey. If there was one thing I was worried about, it was Zoey looking in me for some trait of the decadence which my uncle would surely display throughout the day, and especially into the night as he boozed up.  Zoey and I, traveling by car from one side of Missouri to the other, arrived at my old house three hours after departing my new one, at around 3pm. My uncle and his wife had already arrived an hour earlier, and my parents seemed particularly relieved when Zoey and I walked through the door. Theyd already met her, so grand introductions between them were unnecessary. My uncle and aunt hadnt met Zoey before, and so I was forced to play the diplomat between my eternally polite and cordial girlfriend, and my somewhat disagreeable uncle.  Just minutes in, I made the mistake of asking why everyone, including my uncle and aunt, were wearing the same Christmas-themed red sweaters. My mother, expectedly cheery with the holiday spirit, practically ran upstairs, and soon after returned with two more sweaters; one for me, and one for Zoey. We put them on, and as my sweater went over my head, I felt a slight nudge in my exposed side from Zoey.  Things, however, went much better than expected, and I didnt have to deflect any too-personal questions or steer my uncle away from salaciously-intoned conversation. He was uncharacteristically polite to her, and my aunt even seemed a tad jealous at the pleasant compliments he offered to Zoey. But, in typical Uncle Brian fashion, the behavior was only a smokescreen; a show, playing out while something comically sinister went on backstage.  This scheme turned out to be the introduction of a certain festive element. For years, my uncle had complained about the beverages served at the Christmas gathering, particularly the eggnog, which he called, “thin”, and “impotent. ” His sentiments were shared by myself and my father, and—unbeknownst to everyone but myself—by my sister as well; whod been sneaking sips of the spiked drink since she was thirteen.  The eggnog, unfortunately for everyone who had to drink it, was my mothers “personal recipe”, something of which she was very proud, and so we suffered its dull taste and pitifully low alcohol infusion each year. Until this year, because Uncle Brian had brought his own.  He showed me the contraband after gifts were exchanged and Christmas pleasantries had fully commenced; calling me over to him in my fathers easy chair, from which hed displaced my accommodating dad with complaints of an ankle that “troubled” him.  He furtively withdrew the jar, which he had hidden within the stocking my mother passed out to everyone upon arriving. It was a large mason jar, at least 24oz, and within sloshed about a yellow-ish liquid; some hardy eggnog. A label across the glass read, “Yuletide Yowza”, and a cartoonish man clad in winterwear stared ahead with eyes bulging and mouth agape, holding a cartoon approximation of the drink. My Uncle snickered at my surprise, and whispered to me that he bought it from “a guy” at the gas station a few blocks down, for a steal of six bucks. According to this guy, the alcoholic endowment was of a grain nature, and therefore far preferable to the practically virgin, store-sold alternatives.  Without detection—my parents were absorbed in a story being told by my aunt, Zoey was in the bathroom, and my sister had gone off to do teenage things—Uncle Brian and I slinked away to the kitchen. There, quietly, we opened the drink and poured ourselves two glasses. My uncle hid the jar in the back of the fridge, behind a long-forgotten jar of pickles, and a jar of salsa that probably hadnt been green when it was first bought.  My uncle quickly swallowed the contents of his glass, apparently unconcerned with the etiquette of cheers, and immediately withdrew the jar from the fridge to pour himself more. I was about to try mine, when footsteps alerted me to someones approach from the living room, so I slid my jar out of immediate view behind the dish rack full of newly-washed dishes on the counter. The intruder turned out to be my sister, Emily. “What are you guys doing? ” Her casual tone belied her true intentions—she had probably observed us skulking away, and surmised that whatever we were doing would be something in which shed want to be involved. The smirk which followed her question after our unprepared stammering confirmed this, and my uncle took her aside and whispered his damnable secret into her ear. Her smirk grew wider, and she demanded a share of our loot, lest we have the rest of the family alerted to our prize.  So, he did. He poured her a few drops and denied her more, even despite her threats, at least retaining some of his adult responsibility. She accepted her meager portion with false grumpiness; she was obviously thrilled to partake in drinking, especially of something that her uncle had felt the need to hide. She sipped, and her smile returned. “Smooth, isnt it? And that punch, woo! ” My uncle, despite dissuading my sister from exposing his inconsiderate goods, had forgotten the circumstances. His voice boomed, and sure enough his wife, my parents, and Zoey entered the kitchen and caught us in the act. My sister, ever-clever and quick-witted, gracefully tossed her glass into the still-open fridge, sending it sliding between a carton of orange juice and the water pitcher. My uncle dumbly held onto his glass, and I hadnt retrieved mine from its hiding place.  My aunt was the first to speak. “Brian, you said you would wait until we got home. How could you bring that in here? ” My father, immediately recognizing what it was, took a step towards my mother, ready to comfort her inevitably hurt feelings. Zoey, out of the bathroom and joining the group, looked confusedly at me, and then made the connection as she observed my uncles eggnog mustache.  My mom was the last to understand, and when she did my uncle visibly tensed in anticipation of whatever outburst was sure to come. Quietly and unemotive, she walked to my uncle, took his glass from his hand, and took a sip of the ill-brought eggnog. She handed him back the glass, and, surprising everyone, said, “Not bad. Better than what I made. ” My uncle let loose a nervous chuckle and relaxed his shoulders a bit. She then said, after a burp, “Really hits you right on. ” She opened the fridge, retrieved the eggnog, and said to the rest of us, “well, go on then. Grab some glasses. ” I reached for mine but my father, who had wormed his way past Zoey and my aunt, reached it first. I went to grab a cup from the dish rack when the sound of shattering glass cut through the arising conversation, and I turned to see that my uncle had dropped his glass; shattering it on the kitchen floor and spilling the eggnog across the white tile. My aunt blurted out, “Shit, Brian! ”, but my uncle hadnt said anything, and when I turned towards him, I found out why.  Bubbling from his mouth and falling in disgusting streams of slimy yellow onto his sweater was what I guessed to be regurgitated eggnog. Uncle Brian then began to moan, and one of his eyes rolled back, while the other turned crazily in every direction, ceaselessly spotting random parts of the room. His stomach began to bloat, until it grew concerningly distended, and his skin became disconcertingly sallow.  My aunt screamed, my mom recoiled and fell backwards into my father, my sister said a careless “What the fuck”, and Zoeys arm found itself wrapped around one of mine. My aunt shrieked, “Honey, oh god, are you alright? ” A stupid question, but given the circumstances, one no one questioned. My uncle was plainly not “right”, and as if to needlessly confirm this, the stream of vomit gained a terrible shade of crimson, and my uncle clutched at his stomach in obvious agony.  My father took charge, then, shouting out, “Brian, Im going to call an ambulance. Hang on! ” He passed my mother to me, who wrapped herself around the arm not currently held onto by Zoey, then withdrew his cellphone and started to dial—but he never managed to hit the last 1 of the 911. A yellow drop fell to his screen, and was followed another, and then three more all at once, and then the entire phone was rained upon by a rivulet of yellowish slime, originating from my fathers agape mouth.  He let out a low, pained moan, and dropped his phone to the floor. His eyes rolled back in his head, his throat throbbed as if something surged within, and from his mouth—and then nose—fell that the concoction which my uncle had foolishly believed to be hardier-than-normal eggnog.  My mom, whose grip on my arm had loosened, tightened like a vice, and she cried out my fathers name, and my sister, as if regressing ten years in an instant, called out “Daddy? ” My father lurched forward, almost knocking my mother over, and fell face down on the floor. A wet splat accompanied his collision, and the not-nog pooled quickly around his head; still flowing. My aunt cried out, matching my mothers horror-filled screams, and our heads went from her to where she stared, to my uncle, who had undergone a significant transformation while unobserved. His stomach had bloated sickeningly and now sagged over his belt, hanging almost to his knees, and swayed as if filled with something. His hyper-active eye still ceaselessly shifted its gaze, and the other—still rolled back—had gone from white to a dirty yellow. The stream of yellow filth which had flowed from his mouth had dwindled to a slight trickle, and accompanying this was a thick spew of froth. Coagulated eggnog coated his face, and most of his sweater, and his entire body spasmed and tremored in rhythm to some undetectable change occurring within. My aunt approached him, and something in the recesses of my animal brain told me that this was not a good idea, that the change which had come over my uncle was not of just an infectious nature, but a predatory one.  My aunt placed a shaking hand on my uncles shoulder, who seemed to have lost his awareness of the other kitchen occupants. But upon contact, he turned directly to her, looking into her eyes with neither of his, and one of his hands reached out and seized her violently by the throat. In a horrible crunch that sounded similar to the snapping of a popsicle stick, he shattered her windpipe, then toss her lifeless body to the ground. She fell atop my fathers body, which had also started spasming; her head dangling slightly above the ground by the gruesomely-squeezed neck.  My mom went completely silent then, as did Zoey, who I didnt notice had started screaming until shed stopped, and a total silence fell on the room. My sister hadnt made a sound since her childish outcry.  My uncle, bloated and altered in more ways than one, took a step towards the remaining three of us, who had huddled together in shared terror. As he approached, a drop of the eggnog fell into my aunts mouth, which lay slightly open in her deathly expression. When uncle Brian passed the pile—if two constituted a pile—of bodies, the realization that I was next in line to step up came to me, and I shouted a half-spirited command for him to stop, which he did not obey; if he even understood it.  When this didnt work, my second option proved to be considerably more effective: I hit him with a stool from the kitchens “bar”, as my father called it, which was just a shelf where he stored his rarely-enjoyed alcohol and cheap cigars. The seat of the stool crashed into my uncles head with a thud that wouldve been comical, if the circumstances werent so dire. Despite the solid contact, he continued on towards us, registering the impact with a groan that suggested mild displeasure rather than pain.  Out of options, I forcefully ushered Zoey, my sister, and my mother out of kitchen, then belatedly shouted “run”, and we all, for some inexplicable reason, scattered into separate directions. Zoey panic-danced about, being unfamiliar with the home, I cowardly fled upstairs, my sister ran into the basement, and my mother ran into the laundry room, which I suppose was the smartest decision of the bunch; since it connected to the garage, and therefore to an immediate exit. The front door, however, had been ignored; as the smartest options of escape seemingly are in high-terror situations.  I hid—seemingly regressing as my sister had—in my old rooms closet. The room hadnt been changed much, surprisingly, considering that my father always joked about turning it into a “sports room” upon my departure to college. The same clothes I had worn in my late teenage years that I hadnt brought with me when I left had been folded and placed on the inner shelf, leaving me totally exposed if someone should open up the closet doors. I had the brief, bizarre idea to re-hang them so as to conceal myself, but settled for using an old shirt to secure the inner knobs.  I waited, my ear pressed against the closet door, for sounds of someone approaching, but all I heard was my uncles low moaning, which placed him still somewhere downstairs. I felt around in my pockets for my phone so I could call Zoey, but apparently, I had laid it somewhere in the living room when we all had exchanged gifts and took pictures. Minutes went by, and my uncles moan shifted to a kind of gurgling exclamation, and I heard a scream.  It was pitched too high to be my mothers or Zoeys, and originated from lower within the house. Thus, the only logical person was my sister. My uncle had found her in the basement. Compelled by brotherly duty, and emboldened somewhat by the vestiges of alcohol that had been dripped into my mothers batch of eggnog, which Id drank heavily for her benefit, I undid the fastened shirt and flew from the closet. I practically hopped down the stairs, and ran through the living room and down into the basement; seeing no one else as I went by. I came to find my uncle standing over my sister, who had fallen onto her butt, or had been pushed, and was scooting away with a hand raised in what was certainly an inadequate defense. I started to approach her, then stopped, because of what I saw trickling out the corner of her mouth. A rivulet of yellow ran from the corner of her mouth to her chin, and her eyes, which still stared in horror at my uncle, had begun to twitch.  She cried out, “Help me! ” and I again started towards her, but again stopped, because my uncle had as well. He swayed in place, gurgling and spilling yellow all over the floor, then turned away from my sister. Upon seeing me his excitation returned, and he advanced in my direction—bearing the same ill-intent hed had towards Emily.  The basement was furnished and decorated with twentieth century Sci-Fi memorabilia—a project my father and I had completed—and I wished the various prop blasters and devices could assist me in combating the lumbering horror with curdled chunks of yellow filth on its face. I ran to the front of the couch, which faced a large TV and a cutout of a flame-thrower wielding MacReady from John Carpenters the Thing, and positioned the couch so it faced the adjacent wall; meaning to pin my uncle between the two.  My uncle hadnt ever to my knowledge been a smart man, and in his afflicted state he was a few brains cells below a mouse, so my plan worked—initially. I pushed and thankfully overpowered the little resistance my uncle thought to offer, and successfully pressed him up against the wall, but upon becoming fully aware of his predicament he returned a greater effort—freeing himself despite my retaliatory pushback. The eggnog, aside from scrambling his brains and upending his gut, had apparently endowed him with enhanced strength.  I decided to run, my confidence evaporated, and as I sprinted for the stairs, I saw my sisters body convulsing on the floor beside a life -sized replica of a pod from the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers film. The eggnog bubbled from her mouth, and her eyes showed only white.  I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the bar which had been modeled after Ten Forward from Star Trek: TNG, then turned away and fled up the immaculately-carpeted steps. We really did a great job down here; it was a shame it would all be ruined by the yellow-leaking horrors that were my changed family members.  I exited the basement and slammed the door shut—I dont know why, my uncle hadnt pursued me up the steps—then pushed my fathers easy chair in front of it; for when my uncle did ascend. Thinking it safe to do so, I called out for my Mom, and then for Zoey, and received no answer from either.  I ran to the laundry room first—sorry Zoey—and didnt find my mother there, nor did I find her in the garage, so I returned to the living room and again called out to both women, but neither responded. Then I heard a squelching sound coming from the coat closet in the foyer, and wishing for anything but the obvious, I slowly opened it. Nestled among a piled of un-hanged clothes was my mother, with a froth of yellow around her mouth, bubbles expanding and popping audibly. One eye was closed and sealed shut by a dried splatter of eggnog, while the other stared upward at nothing. I started crying at some point, and only realized it when tears fell onto my arms, which were wrapped around myself—clutching the bottle to my stomach. For a terror-filled instant I thought the droplets to be the diabolical eggnog, then remembered that I hadnt had any of it. Then I realized what was going on, probably much later than you, smart reader, and felt a guilt-accompanied relief; because I knew I wouldnt transform into one of the bile-spewing creatures.  Mother was still in some pre-violent, mid-transformative and catatonic state, so I shut the door and braced a table against it; the one which ironically held pictures of my high school and college graduations, deeming that with her presently reduced mental capacity it would take her a while to free herself. I took a mental tally of the occupants, and remembered who had and who hadnt consumed the eggnog. Zoey hadnt, and neither had my aunt, but she was dead, slumped over my fathers body, who had started his transformation shortly after uncle Brians. Brian and my sister were trapped in the basement.  That left my Dad to deal with, and Zoey to find. The latter was easy enough, assuming she had stayed in the house, but the former would be difficult. Assuming he still remained in the kitchen, Id have to corral my father into a room, and I was running out of them. Leading him down into the basement was a no-go, because Id have to push him down the stairs, and I hoped whatever had gone wrong with them could be reversed. I didnt want to kill him or any of them if they could be returned to normal states.  I considered the pantry in the kitchen, but discarded the thought almost immediately; the doors folded out, couldnt be locked, and were pretty flimsy anyway. I thought about using the kitchen table to pin him against something, but if my out-of-shape uncle could effortlessly push away a couch, Im sure my still relatively fit father could do the same to a kitchen table.  I left the foyer and tentatively stalked through the living room—still unoccupied—careful not to step on torn wrapping paper and alert someone to my whereabouts. I peeked into the kitchen and was horrified—not just because I didnt see my father, but because I also didnt see my aunts body. Then, compounding my horror and driving me nigh to insanity, was the recent memory of the yellow droplet falling into my aunts mouth. Evidently, the eggnog could reanimate corpses.  This revelation, having deepened my horror, also led me to consider abandoning the whole house. All of my family had succumbed to the destroying eggnog, and while I was pretty sure that I loved Zoey, I wouldnt yet call her family. As if fate sought to rid me of my craven thoughts, I heard a scream from upstairs—Zoey's scream. I was sure that I hadnt heard anyone ascend the steps after me during our initial flight from the kitchen, so she mustve gone up sometime while Id been in the basement.  My resolve renewed, I took the steps in great leaps, and arrived at the second floor as another scream echoed throughout the house. It came from my parents room. I ran down the hallway, my thundering footsteps shaking the walls, causing a few pictures of myself and my sister to fall to the floor. I reached my parents room, the door already open, and came upon a truly nightmarish sight:  Zoey lay on my parents bed, the sheets and comforter pulled up to her as if acting as a safety blanket, with the lights of both bedside lamps turned on; combining with the waning evening sunlight to illumine the room clearly. I wish they hadnt.  Standing before the end of the bed was a figure. Not a person, as you and I would normally describe, but something which would more accurately be described as persons. My father acted as the base, the frame of this thing, supporting the other person which rested on him, which was combined with him, in an amalgamate monstrosity. This other thing, happened to be the half-dissolved, eggnog-soaked corpse of my aunt, which, confirming my suspicions, had been re-animated; at least partially.  Curdled eggnog covered her face, blocking out all facial features except an eye, which had yellowed almost to the same tint as everything else about her. Her sallow skin had been stretched by the eggnog which bubbled beneath, no longer contained to her gastrointestinal tract, and instead ran amok throughout the vessel once known as a human body.  She was attached to my fathers back, her midsection fused into him, melted into him, with no trace of her waist or legs. Her arms were wrapped around my fathers neck, with one looking as if it was actually stuck; glued there by the coagulant filth. My father seemed to be in roughly the same shape as wed left him, just a bit more deteriorated and leakier. The Joined-Thing gurgled inhumanly, and clumsily mounted the bed. If the accommodation of my aunts corpse had been intentional, the Joined-Thing had yet to perfect its movement. Zoey screamed as the first drops of eggnog soiled the bed, and the heavy form strained the bed springs. I called out to her, and she turned—finally noticing me—then quickly dismounted the bed and ran to me. The creature, slowed by the slush that clogged its brain, was late to react, and I shut the door before it had even managed to get off the bed.  We ran through the hall, with me in the lead. I was content having saved one person, and planned on leaving the house. I reached the steps, and was about to plunge down, but heard Zoey call out. I swiveled around, expecting to see her seized by the inordinate Joined-Thing, but shed just fallen, and held her left foot in her hand. Blood trailed from the sole, perplexing me, until she delicately removed a shard of glass from the skin. The pictures. I didnt hear the crunching of glass as I passed through the hall, so I mustve missed them or not ran over the frames. I went to Zoey, helped her to her feet, and carried her down the stairs, and by then the door of my parents room was being pounded on by the Joined-Thing trapped inside. We reached the landing and I immediately went for the front door, but someone called out my name. I looked at Zoey, but she looked back at me with the same expression of surprise, so I looked towards the living room and saw yet another terrible, awful, just really fucked up thing.  It was my mother, in a severe state of eggnog-induced degeneration. Her sweater showed no traces of its once annoyingly-bright redness, and was instead a sickening yellow; completely coated in the eggnog, like some yolken armor. The top of her head had collapsed inward, and her hair had fallen out. Her flesh was hideously sallow, just like the others, and her green sweatpants barely contained her bloated legs.  She called my name again, and motioned for me to come to her. Zoey, having forgot her pain in her terror, screamed annoyingly in my ear. I set her down on the living room couch, if only for a moment. Neither my father nor my uncle had exhibited the capacity to speak in their eggnog-addled forms. Neither had demonstrated anything resembling what middling intelligence they once possessed.  My curiosity barely trumped by fear, and I approached my mother. Her outstretched hand was covered in the eggnog, dripping it onto the carpet. Just an hour ago she wouldve lost her mind if someone had done that. She was still my mother, regardless of what was happening to her. And she could speak, which resurrected my dead hope for the reversal of the scourge. Maybe it went away on its own, if left alone. Id trapped her in the closet—the thought as to how she got out didnt cross my mind at the time—so maybe they all could be saved; returned to what they were? Well, at least my mother, sister, and uncle. Wasnt sure about whatever was trapped upstairs in my parents bedroom.  I approached my mom, still gripping the bottle Id plundered from the basements imitative bar. Initially, it was the closest thing to a weapon I spotted during my hasty escape therefrom; a certainly single-use club. My mother didnt seem to care that I approached with this defensive item, and had extended her other arm, welcoming me to an embrace.  I stopped my approach right in front of her, and planned on asking a series of questions which would help me determine just what level of intelligence shed retained, or had re-discovered, when she suddenly lurched at me, her arms clamping on my shoulders. She threw me to the ground, then knelt on my chest, deflating my lungs immediately with a loud and pain-intoned exhalation. Then, as if none of the other dripping and leaking sections of her body would suffice, she lifted her sweater, exposing a belly that had never once been so bloated, and pulled forth a sagging, jaundiced breast.  The flesh of the nipple had remained pink, for which I was strangely thankful, although it lactated the eggnog without any compressive prompting from my mother. With the hand not holding onto the breast, she held tightly onto my throat, then thrust the nipple into my mouth. I fought her, but her weight had probably tripled with the intake of the strangely-increasing eggnog, and I could only thrash about futilely.  My efforts were proved worthless, because a drop had apparently entered my mouth. I tasted the smoothness of which my uncle had spoken, and the subsequent punch of the accompanying alcohol. It was good, Ill give its diabolical chemist that, whoever he was.  I expected to feel some sort of internal rearranging, some shifting of my innards which would denote the incorporation of the terrible eggnog into my base physiology; usurping the natural biological processes I had come to take for granted. But I felt nothing beyond the lingering, enjoyable potent taste of the grain alcohol. Until a few seconds later, then I was shown a horror nigh ineffable, something so bizarre, outré, and twisted that putting it into words, now, is only possible with a healthy dose of regular, unmixed alcohol.  At once, everything in the room first took a subsuming filter of yellow, and then as if blinking from existence, the objects—couches, coffee tables, Christmas tree, presents—vanished, and the space theyd inhabited expanded. The confines of the room were cast away, and almost instantly I found myself in an expanse of terrible yellow, extending endlessly in a vast, infernally sallow-scape.  My mother had also vanished, her disappearance coeval with the other things that had been in the room. I arose from my position on what had been a carpeted floor and stood, observing the featureless and supremely yellow realm. Then, at first individually and then in scores, yellow-bodied, eggnog-coated individuals appeared in the distance. None faced me, but towards a yellow elevation, which had arisen from the base of the realm without my notice.  This elevation, which was the kind of platform youd expect to see a candidate stand on at a political rally, was occupied by a sole person, also covered in eggnog. This person wore what I suspected to be religious garbs, although I could not discern which religion. Something about them, aside from their total yellowness, told me that they were not the clerical robes of any Earth-originated religion.  The figure, from what I can remember, was especially tall, and much fatter than anyone of his congregation. He stood on the platform, which had no podium or any other objects, and was preaching some sermon which I could not understand. He spoke a language, and at times his congregation repeated certain words or phrases back to him, but none of this was familiar or even vaguely identifiable to me.  I approached, at a rate, and from a distance, both hard to discern in the absolute yellow of the environment, until I could clearly hear—and now replicate—the extramundane language these beings spoke. Ill provide phrases that I can remember. Others, which I also remember, are too hideous, or too verbosely-confounding to repeat. Ul Saren, El Throk! El-Yael rah, Koros, et tak! Nuey, nuey, haralnurah, beyah! Eh-Gah, purah, Eg-Nug, Eyaeh. *Oolah( or Oulaa. sanyeah, sullah perenah! Eh-Gah, Eg-Nug, Eyaeh, Eyaeh, ul yael siffu etarnyah! These phrases, and others—which felt somehow blasphemous despite my total ignorance of the language—where spoken by the leader in the ostensibly religious garments, and repeated, chanted, or sung discordantly by his flock. Upon the apparent completion of his sermon, the cleric parted his robes, revealing two sagging breasts, yellow-nippled and engorged. He grasped both with his hands and squeezed them, and from each flowed a torrent of the eggnog, which quickly flooded the congregation below.  They drowned in it, happily. I saw bodies floating, doubtlessly lifeless, beneath me—I had obtained some kind of elevation during my observance of this rite—and those that still clung to life rejoiced in some dark ecstasy as they swam among the corpses of their companions; eventually joining them in whatever afterlife existed for these beings.  The eldritch, Eggnogian horror mustve been too much of a shock, because I was returned to my reality, as instantly as Id left it. My mothers bloated and yellow face hovered over me, both eyes covered, with the nipple still poised just above my mouth. She mustve been waiting for me to turn, because she hadnt reacted to my coming back from that amber hellscape.  Capitalizing on this, I knocked her aside, scrambled to my feet, instinctively apologized, and then scooped up Zoey, who had fainted at some point. I hoped, for the sake of our relationship, that shed lost her sense prior to the vile breastfeeding.  I carried Zoey out of the house and placed her perhaps a bit haphazardly into the backseat of my car, and patted my pockets. I still had my keys, thankfully hadnt removed them from my pockets as Id done my phone. I started the engine and backed out of the driveway. As I righted myself in the street, I took one last look at the house. My mother stood in the doorway, and my father stood in the window of the upstairs bedroom. My father, who had undergone yet another transformation, was truly horrifying; I dont think Ill ever get that twisted, multi-limbed, sagging image out of my head.  My mother wore a face of disappointment, somehow imparted to me despite her face now being a smooth and featureless mask of congealed eggnog. I turned away from her, ashamed for a reason I didnt have time to think about, and drove away. My destination—the gas station where my uncle had bought the “eggnog” from “some guy”. Im determined to find out what exactly hed sold to my uncle, and hopefully how to reverse the substances deleterious effects.

This is part 4, Vol. 4 in a long series about direwolves. Due to length, it's broken into multiple volumes. Other volumes are as below: V1 (AGoT) V2 (ACoK) V3 (ASoS. The rest of the series: Series posts: Part 1: Lady/Sansa, Part 2: Grey Wind/Robb, Part 3: Nymeria/Arya, Part 5: Shaggydog/Rickon, Part 6: Ghost/Jon A Dance with Dragons – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Aloft In ADwD, these themes continue with Bran and Summer north of the wall.  While they make their way to the cave of the Children of the Forest, Summer, disconnected from his bond to his littermates, seeks out a new pack.  Bran continues his skinchainging of Hodor and his warging of Summer.  In Summer, he can recognize another warg, Varamyr, inside One Eye. His independence continues in his cave explorations inside Hodor, which he thinks nobody else notices (I think hes wrong in this.   He finally learns to fly, while he is taught to skinchange ravens and to use the power to enter the weirwood net directly; he is aloft! Sadly, it is a bitter pill to swallow that his body cannot be healed. With only 3 chapters, the implications of his growth in this volume are not well-understood.  We are left to wonder if Summers continued separation to hunt will have negative consequences.  We wonder the same about his continued skinchanging of Hodor.  Given the immense power of the weirwood net, we wonder if Brans independence will lead to unaccompanied sojourns into the weirwood net. In ADwD – Bran I, while the group is again on the move, we return to our direwolf themes.  We start with Summer shadowing and protecting and then have a mention from Bran that he spends a lot of time in the wolfs skin, reinforcing the bond. Bran then reminds us that he is in the habit of wearing Hodors skin as well, which our author points out is not a good thing.  The violation makes the stable boy confused and scared, whimpering, and there is still a hint of the vomit at the back of his throat as mentioned in prior volumes.  Bran tells himself that it is OK, that Hodor recognizes him and is getting used to it. That may be as it may be, but it doesnt change that this is still wrong and the Bran still knows it.  The author is making that abundantly clear in the paragraph below. We also get a reminder of the call of the hunt in the reminder that the elk Jojen rides is PREY. A Dance with Dragons – Bran I Summer brought up the rear of their little band. The direwolfs breath frosted the forest air as he padded after them, still limping on the hind leg that had taken the arrow back at Queenscrown. Bran felt the pain of the old wound whenever he slipped inside the big wolfs skin. Of late Bran wore Summers body more often than his own; the wolf felt the bite of the cold, despite the thickness of his fur, but he could see farther and hear better and smell more than the boy in the basket, bundled up like a babe in swaddling clothes. Other times, when he was tired of being a wolf, Bran slipped into Hodors skin instead. The gentle giant would whimper when he felt him, and thrash his shaggy head from side to side, but not as violently as he had the first time, back at Queenscrown. He knows its me, the boy liked to tell himself. Hes used to me by now. Even so, he never felt comfortable inside Hodors skin. The big stableboy never understood what was happening, and Bran could taste the fear at the back of his mouth. It was better inside Summer. I am him, and he is me. He feels what I feel. Sometimes Bran could sense the direwolf sniffing after the elk, wondering if he could bring the great beast down. Summer had grown accustomed to horses at Winterfell, but this was an elk and elk were prey. The direwolf could sense the warm blood coursing beneath the elks shaggy hide. Just the smell was enough to make the slaver run from between his jaws, and when it did Brans mouth would water at the thought of rich, dark meat. Changing gear from the elk, Summer clearly is ill at ease with the un-dead ranger.  With the “cold” remark we are meant to wonder if the ranger is from the others. As now. The elk stopped suddenly, and the ranger vaulted lightly from his back to land in knee-deep snow.  Summer growled at him, his fur bristling. The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all. Next, we get something completely new.  Bran uses Summer directly to track, ultimately to find an abandoned wildling village.  This is a first for us in Brans story.  I do wonder how similar this is to how Grey Wind found the goat track for Robb, although I presume that for Robb it was revealed in a dream and not in a direct warging experience.  In this instance the mind meld is quite fascinating.  Summer is mostly in control, but Bran gives the objective and steers the wolf to stay on task in a guiding fashion.  The bond is quite close, Not the final line.  Bran claims to have smelled it himself, in the first person, rather than saying Summer smelled it. “ Summer can find the village, ” Bran said suddenly, his words misting in the air. He did not wait to hear what Meera might say, but closed his eyes and let himself flow from his broken body. As he slipped inside Summers skin, the dead woods came to sudden life. Where before there had been silence, now he heard: wind in the trees, Hodors breathing, the elk pawing at the ground in search of fodder. Familiar scents filled his nostrils: wet leaves and dead grass, the rotted carcass of a squirrel decaying in the brush, the sour stink of man-sweat, the musky odor of the elk. Food. Meat. The elk sensed his interest. He turned his head toward the direwolf, wary, and lowered his great antlers. He is not prey, the boy whispered to the beast who shared his skin. Leave him. Run. Summer ran. Across the lake he raced, his paws kicking up sprays of snow behind him. The trees stood shoulder to shoulder, like men in a battle line, all cloaked in white. Over roots and rocks the direwolf sped, through a drift of old snow, the crust crackling beneath his weight. His paws grew wet and cold. The next hill was covered with pines, and the sharp scent of their needles filled the air. When he reached the top, he turned in a circle, sniffing at the air, then raised his head and howled. The smells were there. Mansmells. Ashes, Bran thought, old and faint, but ashes. It was the smell of burnt wood, soot, and charcoal. A dead fire. He shook the snow off his muzzle. The wind was gusting, so the smells were hard to follow. The wolf turned this way and that, sniffing. All around were heaps of snow and tall trees garbed in white. The wolf let his tongue loll out between his teeth, tasting the frigid air, his breath misting as snowflakes melted on his tongue. When he trotted toward the scent, Hodor lumbered after him at once. The elk took longer to decide, so Bran returned reluctantly to his own body and said, “ That way. Follow Summer. I smelled it. ” Later, after they discuss that they are all starving again, having used up the food from the Liddle, Bran prefers dreams inside Summer to eating acorn past. “Dreams are what we have. ” All we have. The last of the food that they had brought from the south was ten days gone. Since then hunger walked beside them day and night. Even  Summer could find no game in these woods. They lived on crushed acorns and raw fish. The woods were full of frozen streams and cold black lakes, and Meera was as good a fisher with her three-pronged frog spear as most men were with hook and line. Some days her lips were blue with cold by the time she waded back to them with her catch wriggling on her tines. It had been three days since Meera caught a fish, however. Brans belly felt so hollow it might have been three years. In the dream (shown in its entirety below) a lot happens.  It begins as a typical “Summer” dream, but moves into new territory later.  First, once Bran enters the wolf, Summers hunger seems to grow stronger. It seems that Brans physical hunger is even stronger than the wolfs (which makes sense, since Summers been hunting.   That said, Summer, described as “gaunt”, certainly has lost weight. The hunt calls, and then he senses a pack of wolves, which turn out to be Varamyrs pack from the prologue, the leader of which, One Eye, he is the resident warg. The pack has killed or found dead men.  Summer, mirroring Brans carefulness and knowing hell need to fight for his meat, surveys the scene and Bran learns that theyd been 5 men of the Nights Watch.  They were the deserters from Crasters keep, of course, but Bran cannot know that.  Well return to this later.  Either way, Bran is uneasy, even as Summer only cares about the meat. Summer also notices that the head of one man has been torn off and the eyes and half the face are missing.  I do wonder if the neck is an indication that the ranger killed this man, not the wolves, and the missing eyes are an indication that the ravens that follow him pecked out the eyes. Sleep would not come, could not come. Instead there was wind, the biting cold, moonlight on snow, and fire. He was back inside Summer, long leagues away, and the night was rank with the smell of blood. The scent was strong. A kill, not far. The flesh would still be warm. Slaver ran between his teeth as the hunger woke inside him. Not elk. Not deer. Not this. The direwolf moved toward the meat, a gaunt grey shadow sliding from tree to tree, through pools of moonlight and over mounds of snow. The wind gusted around him, shifting. He lost the scent, found it, then lost it again. As he searched for it once more, a distant sound made his ears prick up. Wolf, he knew at once. Summer stalked toward the sound, wary now. Soon enough the scent of blood was back, but now there were other smells: piss and dead skins, bird shit, feathers, and wolf, wolf, wolf. A pack. He would need to fight for his meat. They smelled him too. As he moved out from amongst the darkness of the trees into the bloody glade, they were watching him. The female was chewing on a leather boot that still had half a leg in it, but she let it fall at his approach. The leader of the pack, an old male with a grizzled white muzzle and a blind eye, moved out to meet him, snarling, his teeth bared. Behind him, a younger male showed his fangs as well. The direwolfs pale yellow eyes drank in the sights around them. A nest of entrails coiled through a bush, entangled with the branches. Steam rising from an open belly, rich with the smells of blood and meat. A head staring sightlessly up at a horned moon, cheeks ripped and torn down to bloody bone, pits for eyes, neck ending in a ragged stump. A pool of frozen blood, glistening red and black. Men. The stink of them filled the world. Alive, they had been as many as the fingers on a mans paw, but now they were none. Dead. Done. Cloaked and hooded, once, but the wolves had torn their clothing into pieces in their frenzy to get at the flesh. Those who still had faces wore thick beards crusted with ice and frozen snot. The falling snow had begun to bury what remained of them, so pale against the black of ragged cloaks and breeches. Black. Long leagues away, the boy stirred uneasily. Nights Watch. They were Nights Watch. The direwolf did not care. They were meat. He was hungry. Summer then decides which wolf is the leader and challenges him, Bran only realizing One Eye is a warg just before the fight, as their eyes meet.  In the fight Summer is likely in control, given the mention that there was no time for thought, although I wonder if pissing on the vanquished warg is Brans conscious act, a callback to Jojens early lessons in ASoS. laughs out loud.   With the victory, the pack is his. The eyes of the three wolves glowed yellow. The direwolf swung his head from side to side, nostrils flaring, then bared his fangs in a snarl. The younger male backed away. The direwolf could smell the fear in him. Tail, he knew. But the one-eyed wolf answered with a growl and moved to block his advance. Head. And he does not fear me though I am twice his size. Their eyes met. Warg! Then the two rushed together, wolf and direwolf, and there was no more time for thought. The world shrank down to tooth and claw, snow flying as they rolled and spun and tore at one another, the other wolves snarling and snapping around them. His jaws closed on matted fur slick with hoarfrost, on a limb thin as a dry stick, but the one-eyed wolf clawed at his belly and tore himself free, rolled, lunged for him. Yellow fangs snapped closed on his throat, but he shook off his old grey cousin as he would a rat, then charged after him, knocked him down. Rolling, ripping, kicking, they fought until the both of them were ragged and fresh blood dappled the snows around them. But finally the old one-eyed wolf lay down and showed his belly. The direwolf snapped at him twice more, sniffed at his butt, then lifted a leg over him. A few snaps and a warning growl, and the female and the tail submitted too. The pack was his. Bran / Summer then proceeds to feast upon the dead flesh of the men.  Remembering that the vanquished wolf is the warg Varamyr, living his second life, I believe that the author is pointing directly at the prologue in this wolf dream.  Recall the 3 abominations from Haggon: Mating while inside the wolf, skinchanging other humans, and eating the flesh of man while inside the beast.  Note that Bran has now broken what seems to me are the two more egregious of the set. Its clear that Lord Bloodraven is much more pragmatic and cares little about Haggons rule about eating the flesh of men, given that just after this wolf dream he has Bran and his entire party eat the flesh of men. (There is no way that he found a sow.  The meat was from the Nights watch men too. Recall that Bran is extremely hungry, and his hunger accentuated Summers own hunger at the beginning of this dream.  He needed to eat if he was going to reach the cave alive. Very pragmatic.  Bloodraven clearly doesnt worry over much about abomination.  Id assume he worries not about the other abominations Varamyr mentions, as well. The only other thing to note here is the mention of Summers littermates.  He can no longer sense them here beyond the wall.  Bran seems even to have to remind him of their existence.  Contrast that with Ghost, who clearly remembered Summer in the last chapter. The prey as well. He went from man to man, sniffing, before settling on the biggest, a faceless thing who clutched black iron in one hand. His other hand was missing, severed at the wrist, the stump bound up in leather. Blood flowed thick and sluggish from the slash across his throat. The wolf lapped at it with his tongue, licked the ragged eyeless ruin of his nose and cheeks, then buried his muzzle in his neck and tore it open, gulping down a gobbet of sweet meat. No flesh had ever tasted half as good. When he was done with that one, he moved to the next, and devoured the choicest bits of that man too. Ravens watched him from the trees, squatting dark-eyed and silent on the branches as snow drifted down around them. The other wolves made do with his leavings; the old male fed first, then the female, then the tail. They were his now. They were pack. No, the boy whispered, we have another pack. Ladys dead and maybe Grey Wind too, but somewhere theres still Shaggydog and Nymeria and Ghost. Remember Ghost? Falling snow and feasting wolves began to dim. Warmth beat against his face, comforting as a mothers kisses. Fire, he thought, smoke. His nose twitched to the smell of roasting meat. And then the forest fell away, and he was back in the longhall again, back in his broken body, staring at a fire. Meera Reed was turning a chunk of raw red flesh above the flames, letting it char and spit. “Just in time, ” she said. Bran rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and wriggled backwards against the wall to sit. “You almost slept through supper. The ranger found a sow. ” – A Dance with Dragons – Bran I Having seen all the wolf dreams that discuss sensing their littermates, I think now is the time to discuss the bond that clearly exists between them.  Each seems connected to the others.  Ghost can sense all the others, and so can Summer.  The exception is that when one is beyond the wall, none of the rest can be sensed by him.  This likely means that the bond between them relies on a direct telepathic connection, which the magical barrier of the wall blocks. As they approach the cave, Summer is mirroring Brans fur and in a protective mode all at once.  He seems also to have to protect their group from the rest of the pack. A Dance with Dragons – Bran II But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind. “They are here. ” […] “Those wolves are close as well, ” Bran warned them. “The ones that have been following us.  Summer can smell them whenever were downwind. ” […] Wordless for once, Hodor slapped the snow off his legs, and plowed upward through the snowdrifts with Bran upon his back. Coldhands stalked beside them, his blade in a black hand.  Summer came after. In some places the snow was higher than he was, and the big direwolf had to stop and shake it off after plunging through the thin crust. As they climbed, Bran turned awkwardly in his basket to watch as Meera slid an arm beneath her brother to lift him to his feet. Hes too heavy for her. Shes half-starved, shes not as strong as she was. She clutched her frog spear in her other hand, jabbing the tines into the snow for a little more support. Meera had just begun to struggle up the hill, half-dragging and half-carrying her little brother, when Hodor passed between two trees, and Bran lost sight of them. When theyre closer, Summer (we assume) senses the wights and his careful nature comes out as he backs away.  In the next paragraph Bran clearly shows that his bond with Summer is strong enough that their senses meld together in full waking (he doesnt go into a trance state but smells whatever Summer smelled.  Recall the first time I feel that this may have happened in the series, at the tail end of the wildling attack on Bran in AGoT when Bran “saw everything”.  This passage here is clear proof that a warg is capable to share senses with the beast in that way.  Recall also the scene where Varamyr is guarding Jon when Stannis attacked Mances army.  He is skinchanging the eagle, primarily, but using his five other skins simultaneously while muttering under his breath. Summer stopped suddenly, at the bottom of a steep stretch of unbroken white snow. The direwolf turned his head, sniffed the air, then snarled. Fur bristling, he began to back away. “Hodor, stop, ” said Bran. “Hodor. Wait. ” Something was wrong. Summer smelled it, and so did he. Something bad. Something close. “Hodor, no, go back. ” Then the wights attack at the mouth of the cave at nightfall.  Summer in action protecting Bran is amazing again, but his instincts to tear out the throat of the wights seem a bit ineffectual at disabling the wight. Tearing off limbs and eating the face is more effective.  It makes me wonder if Bran is influencing Summers varying of tactics here. But suddenly  Summer was between them. Bran glimpsed skin tear like cheap cloth, heard the splintering of bone. He saw a hand and wrist rip loose, pale fingers wriggling, the sleeve faded black roughspun. Black, he thought, hes wearing black, he was one of the Watch. Summer flung the arm aside, twisted, and sank his teeth into the dead mans neck under the chin. When the big grey wolf wrenched free, he took most of the creatures throat out in an explosion of pale rotten meat. […] The last light had vanished from amongst the trees by then. Night had fallen. Coldhands was hacking and cutting at the circle of dead men that surrounded him.  Summer was tearing at the one that hed brought down, its face between his teeth. No one was paying any mind to Bran. He crawled a little higher, dragging his useless legs behind him. If I can reach that cave … In the following paragraph Bran has slipped Hodors skin, which probably saved Hodor, but put his own body in considerable danger, with Summer left alone to guard it.  Bran wonders why Summer is taking such risks (out of character given the caution we usually see from Summer) but its obvious that his protective instinct is driving him to this risky behavior.  Without Leaf interceding, Summer and Brand both might have died; Bran is right to worry that hed be stuck in Hodor.  Fortunately, it doesnt come to that. Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldnt get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summers skin? Or will I just be dead? Somehow Bran returns to his body and a wight that leaf set ablaze is attacking Bran.  Note that it is naked.  Was this one of Crasters mutineers?  One of the rapists?  How long after Sam escaped did the others attack the keep?  Back to Bran, he is saved when a tree shakes off snow to cover him.  The tree SHOOK; the snow didnt just fall.  I believe this to be Bloodraven acting through the weirwood net.  As the episode closes with everyone safe, Summer is back with Bran, shadowing. Everything turned inside out and upside down, and Bran found himself back inside his own skin, half-buried in the snow. The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their snowy shrouds. It was one of the naked ones, Bran saw, in the instant before the nearest tree shook off the snow that covered it and dropped it all down upon his head. The next he knew, he was lying on a bed of pine needles beneath a dark stone roof. The cave. Im in the cave. His mouth still tasted of blood where hed bitten his tongue, but a fire was burning to his right, the heat washing over his face, and he had never felt anything so good.  Summer was there, sniffing round him, and Hodor, soaking wet. Meera cradled Jojens head in her lap. And the Arya thing stood over them, clutching her torch. – A Dance with Dragons – Bran II Brans final chapter in TWoW focuses on his training as a greenseer.  Summer is leaving the cave periodically to hunt, mostly without Bran, though Bran does sometimes watch as a raven instead of inside Summers skin. In an early lesson, it seems that Bran get bored listening to Bloodraven and he falls right into Summers senses invade his consciousness.  At first, he is listening to his teacher, queerly noticing the sounds of leaves and wood, and then he is in Summer, seeing snowflakes fall in the trees.  Note the symbolism of “soldier pines” and “sentinels in white”.  One might think it just a flourishing description, but it probably foreshadows that the white walkers have the cave under siege (or at least they are staking it out. A Dance with Dragons – Bran III There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. “Never fear the darkness, Bran. ” The lords words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mothers milk. Darkness will make you strong. ” The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the soldier pines and sentinels in white. The drifts grew so deep that they covered the entrance to the caves, leaving a white wall that  Summer had to dig through whenever he went outside to join his pack and hunt. Bran did not oft range with them in those days, but some nights he watched them from above. Bran mentioned earlier in the chapter about skinchanging a raven instead of using Summers skin. Now, we skip back in time to his first lesson on this.  The episode inside the raven is a bit of comic relief actually, but there is a lot to learn here about the magic and how GRRM thinks about the magic, consciousness sharing, and especially “second lives. ” Skinchanging a bird is more difficult than with Summer, as we would have expected from Varamyrs chapter, though we presume these ravens are easier than some birds because they are used to being skinchanged.  Indeed, we learn at the end of the passage that all have the consciousnesses of long dead singers inside them. This is huge.  The implication that all these birds have dead CotF inside them seems to mean that the consciousness of these singers moves AGAIN whenever the bird dies.  That suggests that, with the singers in these birds, it is not a “second life” but a series of second lives.  Dare I say infinite lives?  This goes beyond what we are told in Varamyrs chapter.  It begs one to wonder, could this also be the case with other beasts?  I wonder specifically about Ghost, who-in Jon Snow is presumably now spending his own second life.  Could this phenomenon inform the mechanism for his expected resurrection? Slipping into Summers skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a ravens night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. “A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth, ” Lord Brynden said, “but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly. ” He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths. Then he realized he was not alone. “Someone else was in the raven, ” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her. ” “A woman, of those who sing the song of earth, ” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boys flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you. ” “Do all the birds have singers in them? ” All, ” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin. ” We again learn from a warging episode that the the cave is truly under siege, though no “others” are visible.  It also seems that Summer is staying away a lot with the pack.  This is concerning, given our ongoing theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from their Stark protectees.  to compound that, he is also losing weight. The moon was fat and full.  Summer prowled through the silent woods, a long grey shadow that grew more gaunt with every hunt, for living game could not be found. The ward upon the cave mouth still held; the dead men could not enter. The snows had buried most of them again, but they were still there, hidden, frozen, waiting. Other dead things came to join them, things that had once been men and women, even children. Dead ravens sat on bare brown branches, wings crusted with ice. A snow bear crashed through the brush, huge and skeletal, half its head sloughed away to reveal the skull beneath.  Summer and his pack fell upon it and tore it into pieces. Afterward they gorged, though the meat was rotted and half-frozen, and moved even as they ate it. Later we learn that the CotF are feeding Brans group rat meat and Meera is catching fish, but Summer must be eschewing this nourishment for some reason.  I wonder in being north of the wall and separated from his true pack is making Summer even more independent, more wild.  Either way, he is hunting dead things quite a bit.   Note that Bran again is eating the flesh of dead men in the wolfs skin, and  he is also using Hodor as well. On one such occurrence, he finds a cavern filled with singer seemingly clinging to life as they are absorbed by the tree roots.  Are these also greenseers?  We are not given their eye colors, so this is a real mystery.  If they are, though, this could affect the generally accepted explanation of a lot of supernatural events in our story.  Could these singers be informing the actions of the “old gods” biasing the more natural “treeish” thoughts of the weirwood net? The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife.  Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead. Bran ate with Summer and his pack, as a wolf. As a raven he flew with the murder, circling the hill at sunset, watching for foes, feeling the icy touch of the air. As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak. “Hodor, ” Bran said to him, and he felt the real Hodor stir down in his pit. As this volume comes to a close, we are reminded of the affection Bran has with Summer, and also that he has affection for Meera, too.  We see that this is probably shared, in how she pets Summer.  Recalling their first affectionate moment from ACoK.  This sweet moment is couched in the ominous story of Jojen, who has withdrawn.  Given that he has stopped uttering his refrain that “this is not the day I die, ” I surmise that that day is fast approaching.  Meera is certainly concerned.  After they discuss it, Bran wished to console Meera but cant physically reach her.  Next something weird happens.  As Bran wishes to embrace her and considers entering Hodor to accomplish it, she freaks out and flees.  I do believe that Brans consciousness reached out to Meera directly, causing her reaction. The moon was a black hole in the sky. Outside the cave the world went on. Outside the cave the sun rose and set, the moon turned, the cold winds howled. Under the hill, Jojen Reed grew ever more sullen and solitary, to his sisters distress. She would often sit with Bran beside their little fire, talking of everything and nothing, petting Summer where he slept between them, whilst her brother wandered the caverns by himself. Jojen had even taken to climbing up to the caves mouth when the day was bright. He would stand there for hours, looking out over the forest, wrapped in furs yet shivering all the same. […] “Hes being brave, ” said Bran. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, his father had told him once, long ago, on the day they found the direwolf pups in the summer snows. He still remembered. “Hes being stupid, ” Meera said. “Id hoped that when we found your three-eyed crow … now I wonder why we ever came. ” For me, Bran thought. “His greendreams, ” he said. “His greendreams. ” Meeras voice was bitter. Meera began to cry. Bran hated being crippled then. “ Dont cry, ” he said. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight the way his mother used to hold him back at Winterfell when hed hurt himself. She was right there, only a few feet from him, but so far out of reach it might have been a hundred leagues. To touch her he would need to pull himself along the ground with his hands, dragging his legs behind him. The floor was rough and uneven, and it would be slow going, full of scrapes and bumps. I could put on Hodors skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire, back out into the darkness of the tunnels. He heard her steps recede until there was nothing but the voices of the singers. The final mention of Summer is when Bran is taught to enter the weirwood net.  This is the ultimate achievement of him becoming a greenseer, instead of just a boy with potential.  The journey hes gone through to come to this point has prepared him for it.  It started with green dreams, then wolf dreams, then warging, then skinchanging Hodor, then skinchanging ravens, and now skinchanging into the weirwood net directly.  This volume closes as the boy unlocks an overwhelming body of living knowledge of the present, the past, and even the future.  I personally dont think that fate prophecies are set in stone.  The future is not set, but that the prophecies that arise out of the tree net are only a prediction based upon present knowledge.  However, the breadth of knowledge inside these trees is so vast that they probably can “see” the future quite accurately.  Call it a very educated guess.  Either way, Bran is on the cusp of unlocking the knowledge of all this history and all these predictions. The mechanism is explained to be very similar to warging Summer.  Yet, Bran may be only the second to do it in the past 100 years.  I am extremely interested to see where his story goes in the next volume! “Close your eyes, ” said the three-eyed crow. “ Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see. ” Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below. – A Dance with Dragons – Bran III In conclusion, I hold to my hypothesis, that Bran and Summer are “somewhat of a special case” chiefly because of Brans own powers and how quickly they develop.  Their bond is more deeply developed than any of their siblings, just as Brans ability to use his power to communicate with and “operate” other beasts and beings develops more rapidly than that of his siblings.  That this is happening so quickly to such a young boy does make me worry about this ability to hold on to his humanity.  On that note, his skinchanging of Hodor is quite concerning. That said, his empathy for Meera, Jon, and others tells me that he can make it through this with his sanity intact.  He is also fiercely independent.  This trait, mixed with stubbornness and mental strength, is a fantasy trope where heroes can deflect attempt at brainwashing and mind control. In this, his bond to Summer is also steadying, and driving (a hunger) at the same time.  These traits will serve him well amidst the winds of winter! Speaking of young boys and magic, my thoughts turn to Rickon.  I also wonder about his ability to hold onto his humanity and sanity given his bond to Shaggy, who seems to be a very strong and willful wolf.  Well tackle their story in part 5. Shout-out and attribution as always goes to those whove gone before me with some of the theories that I am probably subconsciously utilizing / mentioning / building upon here, including: u/LoveMeSexyJesus who posted u/RockyRockington who posted u/PrestonJacobs and all his videos related to this topic u/Prof_Cecily for insights about early Bran chapters in ASoS LML for help understanding Symbolism (even though I barely use the skill in this essay. I have a lot of original thought here but I am certainly synthesizing a lot of their ideas, as well. Also, Thanks GRRM! TL;DR  Whatddya want, its 33, 000 words?  I cant summarize this for you in a paragraph.  Get to it or dont.  Its worth it; I promise. Actually, the summary is just below the last quote above.

გთხოვთ გადაიღეთ სამკაცას რომელიმე სიმღერა. We live the End of times,Luciferians want to be politically correct. Solo nos queda bailar Free stream new.

 

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კომენტარებში ტ და ყ ლიდერობს. I met twelve-year-old Bradford only an hour ago. Now his head is smashed in and hes lying in a pool of blood in the middle of my basement floor. The police will be here any minute to arrest me, no doubt. Theyll gather testimony from the other three boys that were here tonight, then from the nearly one hundred other boys that have visited my basement over the past seventeen years. Alright, writing that down makes me sound like a pervert, but Im not a pervert. Lets get that out there. This is my final confession. It all started in the year 2002. I had just graduated with a masters in psychology and was working at Top Hat Video to pay the bills while pursuing research on Psychedelic Therapy on the side. While exiting the local Cinemark after seeing M. Night Shyamalans Signs on opening night, I noticed a group of four boys gathered around the ticket booth, one of whom I recognized as a neighborhood kid, Jimmy McConkie. They had just learned that the 11:15 pm showing was sold out and were trying to figure out whose mom could pick them up. Jimmy saw me and called out. “Hey Marcus! Hows it goin? ” “Jimmy, whats goin on? ” “Signs is sold out, ” he said, visibly disheartened. “Damn, sorry man. I just saw it, ” I said. His face lit up and his friends gathered around. “Well, how was it? ” he asked. “It was horrifying, ” I said. “So good. ” “Oh man, well, well have to try tomorrow, ” he said, turning to his friends. They nodded in affirmation. Then I started thinking. My latest research had been on the use of psychedelics to treat early childhood trauma. In theory, the drugs would help access a higher plane of existence, which, with the guidance of a licensed professional, could be used to gain a deeper understanding of the trauma. Of course, much of what I was studying back then is almost common knowledge in progressive psychiatric circles today. LSD, MDMA, and Psilocybin (as found in mushrooms) are used regularly in underground guided-therapy sessions nowadays, but back then, no way. In the 1960s or 70s? Sure. Early 2000s? No. On a whim, I invited the boys over to my house. I told them Id give them a preview of Signs without spoiling too much. Since the kids still didnt have a ride home, they accepted my invitation. They packed into my Subaru Outback and I took them to my home. For all the talk about stranger danger, these twelve-year-olds were much too confident coming with me. Though, again, I had no ill intent. I never did, at any point. It sounds so creepy writing it down like this, but a handful of willing kids was exactly what I needed to test my methods. If the combination of psychedelics and hypnosis could work for trauma, why not for fun? I served the four of them Pepsi while I got the basement ready. I set up four chairs in the middle of my unfinished basement, turned on the surround-sound speakers, and got a bell from the storage room. I ground up tablets of MDMA and fed them into the dry powder inhaler. I brought the boys down and invited them to take a seat. “Im gonna set the scene for you, ” I said, handing them blindfolds. “Imagine youre on a farmhouse in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. ” Once their blindfolds were fastened, I started the binaural beats on the speakers. “You are surrounded by hundreds of acres of cornfield, ” I said and rang the bell. I took the powder inhaler to each one and instructed them to inhale on my count. “One… two… three… breathe in, ” Id say, spraying the ground MDMA. “This will help you envision the scene a bit better, ” I told them. They were giddy with excitement as I walked them through the story. I could tell when the drugs kicked in because their reactions became more animated. Once I realized my power, Ill admit I embellished the details a little bit, but the boys were having the time of their lives. Although I wanted to go deeper, I stuck with the story, making sure to get their permission before veering into spoiler territory. I ended on a strong note then let the high wear off before driving them home. The boys decided, on their own volition, that theyd tell their parents they saw the movie as planned and that it was fantastic. They knew it was sketchy going over to a single neighborhood mans house under the radar, so they promised each other to keep quiet. As the months went on, that same group of four boys returned a few more times, asking me to take them on some sort of adventure. Sometimes they had specific requests–I want to fly; Lets do a haunted house; How bout a creepy version of Disneyland, etc. Other times, they let me call the shots. The process was simple enough. I played around with drug types and dosages, along with my hypnosis techniques and music. Eventually, I had formulas for every type of occasion. As that group of four boys got older, they brought their younger brothers and other neighborhood kids as a kind of sacred rite-of-passage. In 2007, Jimmy graduated high school. He went on to other things and I stayed in the same place, continuing my research. Eventually, I got a job teaching Psychology 101 at the community college. By that time, I had myself a group of about eight regulars aged twelve to fifteen that would come over about once a month and allow me to take them on whatever adventure they (or I) wanted. Again, not a pervert. After applying blindfolds, dimming the lights, putting on music, and giving each of them a couple inhales of my special powder, I told them to imagine various scenarios. Id give only a basic level of detail and allow their drug-infused brains to fill in the gaps. Ill admit I pushed the boundaries sometimes to see what kind of reaction Id get. It was around the year 2015 when I made my first real breakthrough. I had a group of six boys, I think. After the regular setup, I decided to do something a little different. To the best of my recollection, heres how the session went: “I want you to imagine youve arrived at an abandoned mansion in the middle of the desert. Its the biggest house youve ever seen. Very dark, very creepy. You open the rusty gate that guards the property and walk through, kicking your feet through piles of moldy leaves. “You slip past what remains of the front door and walk in on a grand entrance. Double staircases, a giant crystal chandelier, granite floors. It smells of mildew and dust, like it hasnt been touched in years. Cobwebs cake seemingly every corner. As you step in and take in the utter beauty of this masterpiece of a mansion, you hear something—the faint lull of a cello. “Intrigued, you follow the sound, taking you down long, winding corridors to a two-story library. The shelves are stocked with books, but they are dusty and rotted much like everything else in the house. The faded sun makes its way through the large stained-glass windows, giving off glares of all colors. In the center of the room is a beautiful woman. She is the composite of every beautiful woman you have ever seen. ” Each of the boys shifted, smiles creeping on their faces. I couldnt help but smile too. “That beautiful woman is the one whos playing the cello. She plays with such fervent passion. The way it reverberates through the library sends a chill down your spine. As you stand there, watching her play carefully with seemingly her whole body, you notice that the second-floor mezzanine is beginning to fill up with people. People you know. Friends, family, acquaintances. They wear somber looks as they take their place standing above you. None of them seem to notice you standing there. “Suddenly, you realize why theyre there. Off to the side, behind the cellist, is an open casket. Your heart sinks as you begin to understand the situation you have walked into. You cautiously approach the mahogany casket as the cello croons in the background. You lean forward to get a closer look at the body. There, with taut white flesh, closed eyes, and caked in makeup, is your dead body. ” One of the boys yelped and fell out of his chair. The others snapped out of hypnosis, ripping the blindfolds off. A couple of them had tears streaming down their faces. I turned off the music and nervously watched them compose themselves in silence. There were so many emotions in the room, I couldnt get a good read on the boys. Eventually, once things relaxed a bit, one of the boys approached me. “Im gonna go home, ” he said. “Okay, do you need a ride? Are you okay? ” I asked. “Im… Ill be fine. I just—” he paused for a moment holding back tears. “Ive been an asshole to my little brother lately. Now Im worried that Ill die, or hell die before I have a chance to make things right. I dont want things to end like this. I want him to know—” He looked around to the other guys and saw that their emotions seemed to match his own. “I want him to know I love him. ” He walked upstairs, out the front door, never to be seen again. A few of the other boys expressed something similar—that there were a few people in their lives that they had been jerks to, that they had lied to, that they hadnt been nice to. They wanted to make things right. For the first time since I had begun this endeavor, I felt good about myself. It was the first time I had dared do anything meaningful with the therapy and it seemed to be effective. These boys lives were changed for good because of this simple session. Fast forward a few years and I have had almost a hundred different boys come to do guided psychedelic therapy sessions with me. They all understood the gravity of keeping it on the down-low—a point that tended to be baked into the initial invitation. Tonight, however, I took things too far. Rather than using the therapy as a method to help the boys explore themselves, I attempted to use it as a method to learn the secrets of the universe. Just a few hours ago, a group of four boys, two of which I had hosted before stopped by, asking if I could conduct a session. I had nothing else going on, aside from a little reading and late-night solo drinking, so I let them in. They had just come from basketball practice. They followed me into the basement and took their seats. The two boys that had been there before—Adam and Bryson—explained the process to the two new boys—Bradford and Trey. The two new boys seemed nervous, as most first-timers are, but they trusted their friends enough to proceed. I started the music, dimmed the lights, and instructed them to place the blindfolds on. I took another sip of whiskey then walked the inhaler around, giving each boy three puffs of my special sauce. Aside from generalities, I dont usually plan these ‘adventures too far in advance. I suppose it was the late-night reading of Lovecraft infused with alcohol and a relentless thunderstorm that led me on tonights particular excursion. I started the session slowly, allowing about thirty minutes for the drugs to take full effect, all while occasionally ringing the bell. “You find yourself in the middle of the woods one evening, the pink sky filtering through thick rows of pine trees. You walk carefully, mindfully through the woods, the soft padding of fallen pine needles cushioning your every step. ” The boys slouched in their chairs as they fell deeper into hypnosis. “As you walk along, smelling the sweet smell of the pines, hearing the chirping crickets, you find a fallen wooden sign half-buried in the ground. You dig it out and brush it off. On it reads something quite peculiar. ‘This way to the end of the world, it reads. You find a tree with an old rusty nail about six feet up and determine that this must be what the sign was attached to. “You continue trekking through the woods, all while keeping an eye out for whatever the end of the world might be. The further you go into the forest, the darker it gets. Pretty soon, you start to feel something. You start to internalize the gravity of the situation. Although you thought the sign was silly at first, you now believe it. You become confident that you are about to discover something groundbreaking. “The chirping crickets suddenly stop. Ahead of you is a metal stairway that leads down into a wide hole—about fifty feet in diameter. You edge closer to the hole and realize that the fading daylight doesnt offer you enough to see the extent of its depth. “You consider turning back, but the unwavering sense of curiosity gets the best of you and you decide to descend the stairs. You go slowly at first, testing the loadbearing of each step carefully. After about twenty stairs, you feel safe and start descending quicker. Another hundred feet down, you happen upon a heavy metal door with rusted bolts and hinges. “You push the door hard and it squeaks open revealing a man playing basketball alone in an empty arena. Each time the ball bounces, it echoes through the building and into the stairwell you occupy. ” Some of the boys sit upright, smirking. “After making a long three, the man grips the basketball and turns slowly to face you. He walks to you very carefully. As he gets closer, you realize the man is huge. ” The boys grip their seats. “Once hes about fifty feet away, you recognize him. Its Lebron James! ” The boys laugh in excitement. One of them stands up and pumps his fist. I cant help but chuckle to myself at my spontaneity. Lebron James is probably the only current NBA player I can name. “When he gets to the doorway, standing right in front of you, a serious look passes on his face, and he begins to speak. ” I clear my throat and drop my voice. “I know that you think youre just having a fun time, going on a psychedelic adventure, but you have to understand something, he says. ‘This journey is important. Very important. What you are doing has the potential to unlock all the mysteries of the earth. You just have to keep going. Promise me youll keep going. ” One of the boys swallows hard. All of them nod in agreement. “Then, the ball hes holding turns to fire. He dribbles it a few times and spins it on his finger, apparently unfazed. He hands you the ball and you hold it with both hands. The flames dance around the ball without burning you. ‘This will help light your path, he says, then slams the door. Lebron James is gone. You continue down the stairwell, your path lit by the flaming basketball. “After another hour of descending the stairs, you reach a second door. This one is equally heavy and rusty as the first. As you push it open, you hear the sound of waves crashing. You lean your shoulder into the door, as you did with the first one, and shove it open. Sand spills onto your feet. You look upon a beautiful endless beach of white sand bordered by blue, crashing waves on one side and lush jungle vegetation on the other. A cool, saltwater mist touches your skin. “When you hear the ding of the bell, the sun will disappear, ” I said. “One… two… three…” I dinged the bell and waited for a moment. A couple of the boys leaned forward. “You can still hear the waves crashing and feel the ocean mist, but the world is pitch black. No stars. No moon. You can only see the few feet of sand in front of you, as illuminated by the flaming basketball. As you focus on the sound, you hear someone walking toward you. When I count to three and ding the bell, the sun will reappear, and your mother will be standing there. One… two… three…” I dinged the bell again. The boys smiled nervously. “This woman brought you into the world, she fed you, clothed you, changed your diapers. Your mother sacrificed so much for you. You feel this. In this moment, you internalize an undying gratitude for your mother. You would do absolutely anything for her—youd take a bullet for her or jump in front of a bus. Absolutely anything. ” I wait for a moment, allowing my words to marinate. “Your mom stands in the sand about fifty feet back, looking at you with a smile. She invites you in, but you cant move—youre stuck in the stairwell. As soon as you realize this, you see someone else approach. A man dressed head-to-toe in black emerges from the jungle with a machete. His identity is concealed by a leather black mask. “Your mom continues to smile, unaware of the man in black approaching. You try to call out, but you cant speak. You wave your hands furiously until she pays attention. A look of fear passes over her. As she turns around to confront her attacker, the man hits her over the head, knocking her unconscious. You notice for the first time that there is a large cage in the sand behind the attacker. The man drags your unconscious mother into the cage, slams the door, and locks it. You look at her limp body sprawled out on the metal floor of the cage and are filled with rage. “You try to move again but cant. You try to scream but cant. The man in black notices you and approaches. When he is standing right in front of you, he dangles the key to the cage and laughs a deep, ugly chuckle. He then throws the key out of the door, over your head. You hear it clank down the staircase, disappearing far, far below you into the void. The man pulls his mask off revealing a horrific, warped face with gaping, bloody holes where his eyes should be. He speaks again: ‘one more door. The door slams shut, booming into the stairwell. ” One of the boys shakes his head furiously. The others look angry. Its working, I thought. “As you continue descending the stairs, lit by the flaming basketball, you feel brave and confident, like you can confront whatever lies in the third and final door. You can get the keys to the cage. You can save your mother and you can find the secrets to the end of the world. You have to be—” Thunder cracked outside, loud enough to make me jump and snap the boys out of hypnosis. They ripped their blindfolds off and stumbled to their feet, breathing heavily. “Oh my god, that was intense, ” Adam said. “You dont want to keep going? ” I asked. “Man, that was enough for one night. Great trip though, I loved meeting Lebron James. That felt so real. Didnt that feel real? ” Trey said to the others. They nodded in agreement. “Damn lightning woke you guys up, ” I said. “Well, thanks for havin us over Mr. Marcus, ” Bryson said, picking up his hat. As they started up the stairs, I noticed that not all of them snapped out of the hypnosis. Bradford sat still, blindfold on, still gripping his chair. “Should I wake him? ” I asked the others. This was Bradfords first session and I didnt want him to freak out when he awoke. “You guys go ahead, Ill wait for Bradford to wake up, ” Adam said. Bryson and Trey disappeared a couple minutes later after making plans with Adam to meet up at Bradfords house when. Adam then took a seat in the corner, excited to watch the session with Bradford proceed. “You continue descending the stairs, a blast of cool air blowing past you, ” I said. Bradford visibly shivered. “Whats your strategy? ” Adam whispered to me. I turned the music up, allowing Bradford a few minutes to descend the stairs. I walked over to Adam. “The key is to get each of the patients in touch with as many emotions and feelings as possible. Happy, sad, afraid, amused, etc. Then I try to create sensory experiences—exposing them to heat, cold, smells, tastes, etc. The more the hypnosis can infiltrate their brain, the more effective it is. ” “Whats your end goal with this session? ” Adam asked. I smiled. “We have five senses, right? ” “Yeah. Sight, smell, touch, taste, and… whats the last one? ” “Hearing, ” I answered. He nodded. “But a lot of our brain is unused, right? ” I posed. “Yeah. ” “So, what if we can experience other senses, but dont know how to activate them? ” I asked. “Like in the same sense that birds or whales know how and when to migrate. Or how any number of animals and insects can locate food or water in almost any scenario. They have these intuitions that we dont quite understand. ” “And you think these sessions can activate those extra senses? ” “I dont know if its possible to activate them in the real world, necessarily, but I do believe that we can activate them within the hypnosis. ” “What kind of senses? ” I took another sip of my whiskey. “Its still a theory, but I think we can tune our inner antenna, so to speak, to understand the secrets of the universe. ” “Like what? ” “Like if were alone in the universe. Like how all this came to be. Like what happens to the souls who have passed, ” I said. Adam sat in contemplation for a moment then smiled. “Damn, well lets hope Bradford can bring us home, ” he said. I tipped my glass to him, sipped my whiskey, then took my place at the front of the room. Bradford hadnt moved an inch. “As you descend the stairs, you begin to hear voices calling from above. You hear your dad, your siblings, your friends. They all voice their support. You can do it! Keep going! Youre almost there! Be brave! ” Bradford sat up tall in his chair. Getting closer, I thought. “The flaming basketball finally finds an end to the staircase. You step onto a cobblestone landing and look around you. You have descended into a large silo of some kind—maybe a cave or a well—with nothing but a door of similar size and configuration as the first two against the wall. On the ground, a flicker of light reveals the location of the cage keys wedged between two stones. However, before you pick the keys up, you realize that you must first open the door. “Just then someone descends the stairs behind you, but you dont feel scared. The person steps into the light of the flaming basketball and you realize that its you. You are standing face to face with yourself. He smiles at you and you smile back. ” Bradford smiled and I looked to Adam, he gave me a thumbs up. “The other you puts his hand on your shoulder and looks into your eyes. Hes almost like a more self-assured version of yourself. Hes fearless. Hes brave. Hes a hero. ‘You must understand, he says. ‘You have been endowed for this mission. You were chosen long ago for this mission. Behind this door lies a cloud of knowledge. When you open the door and step inside, you will be immersed in this cloud. You will be met with a deep understanding of the mysteries of the universe. You will see the origins of creation. You will understand the immensity of all that exists. You will know these things and understand them in a way that will allow you to communicate your findings to others in the real world. ” I took a deep breath and looked over to Adam again for approval. He nodded, a look of utter anticipation on his face. “Do it, ” he mouthed. “The other you stands aside and disappears, leaving nothing between you and the door. You understand what you must do. You take three steps forward, place one hand on the cold metallic door and apply pressure. As you do so, you feel something trickling down your upper lip. You stop pushing and wipe your nose. You are bleeding. ” Adam and I watched Bradford carefully for about fifteen seconds before he gently wiped his nose. He motioned his head to look down at his hand and opened his mouth in surprise. There was blood—actual blood—on his hands. “Holy shit! ” Adam whispered to me. Frankly, I was more shocked than he was. Bradford was my first completely immersed patient. He was in my complete control. This was not an empowering thought, mind you, it was a horrifying one. I briefly considered pulling the plug on the whole thing right then—guiding him away from the door and back up the staircase to the real world, but I didnt. Goddamn Lovecraft. I swallowed hard and held my bell steady. “Now, Im going to count to three and ring the bell. When you hear the bell, you will push open the door and become immersed in the cloud. After a few moments in the cloud, I will ring the bell and you will exit the cloud and close the door behind you. ” I repeated the instructions then took a deep breath. “Here we go, ” I mouthed to Adam. “One… Two… Three…” I said, then dinged the bell. Bradford jolted, flailing his arms and grunting. His chair rocked violently. I instructed Adam to steady it, so he didnt tumble off. How responsible of me. The jolting stopped after a minute and Bradford sat still. Both his nostrils were bleeding now. “Now, when I ring the bell again, you will exit the room and close the door behind you. One… Two…” Bradford stood up abruptly, sending the chair and Adam sprawling onto the floor behind him. He ripped his blindfold off and looked around frantically, like a trapped animal. “Bradford, its all okay, ” I said, but I knew it wasnt. He didnt wake up on his own volition. Nor was there an external stimulus to wake him up—my bell, or a loud noise like the thunder before. Something inside of the hypnosis woke him up. Adam stumbled to his feet. “Bradford, its alright buddy. Its me, Adam, right here, ” he said and reached for him. “No! ” I yelled. “Dont touch him. Come here, ” I told him. Adam obeyed and stood next to me against the wall. Bradford looked around anxiously for another minute, his feet unmoving, then fixed his eyes on the concrete block wall on the opposite side of the room. “Stay here, ” I said to Adam. I walked to the other side of the room, between Bradford and the wall, the bell clutched in my hand. Frankly, I didnt know what to do. I had to assume he was still under some kind of hypnosis, though I didnt know whose. “Bradford, when I count to three and ring the bell, you will come out of hypnosis. Again, when I count to three and ring the bell, you will come out of hypn—” He bolted straight at me, knocking me to the side and plowing straight into the wall, headfirst. “Shit! ” I yelled, stumbling back to my feet. Adam ran over. Between the two of us, we held Bradford down. He had a large gash on his head and a steady stream of blood pouring down his face, but he didnt seem to be in pain. “Bradford, listen to me, ” I said. He turned his head toward me, revealing jittering pupils, as if there was an earthquake behind those eyes. Adam was crying. His phone buzzed across the room, diverting our attention for a moment. “Do we call the cops? ” he asked. “Yes, call 911, ” I said, trying incoherently to piece together a story in my head. Once Adam got to his phone on the other side of the room, Bradford began seizing, knocking me on my ass. I backed up, recognizing my feeble body to be no match for his apparent raw animal strength. “Please, Bradford, breathe with me, ” I said. He again eyed the block wall and ran at it with full force, his skull crunching on impact. Blood spattered on the wall and the floor. He fell onto the ground with a hollow thud. Adam screamed. I tried to lay Bradfords lifeless body straight when his eyes shot open, a look of pure terror on his face. “No! ” he screamed and rolled away from me. He got onto his hands and knees, breathing heavy. As I carefully eased toward him, he let out a loud grunt and began hitting his head on the concrete floor with inhuman intensity. The sound of his head repeatedly crunching against the floor like that will haunt me forever. Blood continued to pool beneath him. I backed away from him, helpless. Adam screamed in horror. After five or six hard hits, Bradford finally collapsed onto the ground, splashing in his own blood. Tears were streaming down my face. Adam was sobbing uncontrollably. A few moments passed in bone-chilling silence. “Did you call anyone? ” I asked with a shaky voice. Adam stared unblinking at Bradfords mangled head resting on the ground. “Adam? ” He snapped out of it. “Uh, no, I—” he said, swiping through his phone. “Okay—the story—our story—” I started. Then Adams eyes grew wide. “What? ” I asked. “The others. Trey and Bryson, ” Adam said, staring at his phone with his hand covering his mouth. “What is it? ” I asked. “When they got to Bradfords house, they found Bradfords mom on the kitchen floor, ” he said and looked up at me. “Shes dead. ” “Shit, ” I said. “Its the hypnosis. It has to be, ” Adam said. “No, thats impossible, the hypnosis cant control someone who isnt under hypnosis, ” I said, nervously. “It cant be related. No way. ” “You said that the goal is to tap into other senses, right? To activate other parts of the brain? ” Adam said. “Well, yeah, thats a theory, but either way, how would that kill Bradfords mom? ” “I dont know. The only thing I can think of, is that, clearly Bradford was all-in. I mean, you hypnotized him into a bloody nose, didnt you? Maybe when you put our moms in a cage on the beach… I dont know, ” he said and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Which—oh shit—I need to check on my mom, ” he said and darted up the basement stairs. Now I sit here in my cold, mildewy basement with this dead boys body, penning my final haunting confession. For the record, I want to apologize to Bradfords family. I take full responsibility for his death. And in the case that I am the cause of Bradfords mothers death, I apologize for that, too. I dont really want to think through the scientific implications if that is the case, to be honest. All I know is that whether I spend my days as a free man or behind bars, I dont know that Ill ever be able to sleep again wondering what Bradford saw when he opened that door and stepped into the cloud. Something he saw drove him to this madness. That much is clear. I hear the police sirens outside now. One last note to the psychiatric community or those who may be looking to build upon my research: Some things are better left unknown.

Charming skit. Beautiful boys. Solo nos queda bailar Free. Solo nos queda bailar Free stream online.

Still can't find that last song in trailer 8.

 

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