#sheruuulz

[stromuprisahat]

“You haven’t said what you mean to give me for my name day. Maybe I should give you something instead, would you like that?” “If it please you, my lord,” Sansa said. When he smiled, she knew he was mocking her. “Your brother is a traitor too, you know.” He turned Septa Mordane’s head back around. “I remember your brother from Winterfell. My dog called him the lord of the wooden sword. Didn’t you, dog?” “Did I?” the Hound replied. “I don’t recall.” Joffrey gave a petulant shrug. “Your brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn’t. She says we need to stay in King’s Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don’t care. After my name day feast, I’m going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That’s what I’ll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother’s head.” A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, “Maybe my brother will give me your head.”

A Game of Thrones- Chapter 67 (George R. R. Martin)

[stromuprisahat]

One of his [Robb's] companions was even a woman: Dacey Mormont, Lady Maege’s eldest daughter and heir to Bear Island, a lanky six-footer who had been given a morningstar at an age when most girls were given dolls. Some of the other lords muttered about that, but Catelyn would not listen to their complaints. “This is not about the honor of your houses,” she told them. “This is about keeping my son alive and whole.”

A Game of Thrones- Chapter 63 (George R. R. Martin)

[stromuprisahat]

“How dare you come here under the auspices of my House?” Heleen hissed. “The house that clothed you and fed you? And where is Adjala?” Inej opened her mouth, but panic rose up, tightening her throat, choking the words before they could come out. Her tongue felt useless and numb. Once more, she was looking into the eyes of the woman who had beaten her, threatened her, bought her once, and then sold her again and again. Heleen grabbed Inej by the shoulders and shook her. “Where is my girl?” Inej looked down at the fingers digging into her flesh. For a brief second, every horror came back to her, and she truly was a wraith, a ghost taking flight from a body that had given her only pain. No. A body that had given her strength. A body that had carried her over the rooftops of Ketterdam, that had served her in battle, that had brought her up six stories in the dark of a soot-stained chimney. Inej seized Heleen’s wrist and twisted it hard to the right. Heleen yelped, her knees buckling as the guards surged forward. “I threw your girl in the ice moat,” Inej snarled, barely recognizing her own voice. Her other hand seized Heleen’s throat, squeezing. “And she’s better off there than with you.”

Six of Crows- Chapter 33 (Leigh Bardugo)

Inej just realized even Tante Heleen can be harmed.

Once you realize mortality of whoever represents your greatest fears, it will get easier to face them.

Inej panted, heart racing. I could have killed her, she thought. I felt her pulse beneath my palm. I should have killed her.

[stromuprisahat]

With the passage of time, Peter tried to correct his temper, and although he never fully succeeded, he was aware of it as a flaw. "I am sensible that I have my faults," he said, "and that I easily lose my temper. For which reason I am not offended with those who are on familiar terms with me when they tell me of it and remonstrate with me, as does my Catherine." Indeed, it was Catherine who could best—and sometimes only—deal with Peter's temper. She was not afraid of him, and he knew that. Once, when she persisted in mentioning a subject which irritated him, he flew into a rage and smashed a handsome Venetian mirror, shouting ominously, "Thus can I destroy the most beautiful object in my palace!" Catherine understood the threat, but looked him in the eye and replied calmly, "And have you made the palace more beautiful by doing so?" Wisely, she never opposed her husband directly, but searched for a way to make him look at matters from a new angle.

Peter the Great: His Life and World (Robert K. Massie)

[stromuprisahat]

“The great lords would have given us another two years of war,” the fool declares in his Testimony, “it was the women who made the peace. Black Aly, the Maiden of the Vale, the Three Widows, the Dragon Twins, ’twas them who brought the bloodshed to an end, and not with swords or poison, but with ravens, words, and kisses.”

Fire and Blood (George R. R. Martin)

[stromuprisahat]

A handful of the braver maidens made so bold as to address the king, in an attempt to make themselves more memorable. ... A northern maid named Barba Bolton, daughter of the Dreadfort, said, “If you send me home, Your Grace, send me home with food, for the snows are deep and your people are starving.”.

Fire and Blood (George R. R. Martin)

Northerners...

[stromuprisahat]

... Oldtown had the power to renew the war; all that was lacking was the will. Lord Ormund had only recently taken a second wife when the Dance began, ... Upon his death at Tumbleton, his lands and title passed to his eldest son, Lyonel, a youth of fifteen on the cusp of manhood. ... When Lord Velaryon’s terms were put to Lyonel Hightower, it is said, the young lord ripped the parchment from his maester’s hand and tore it into shreds, swearing to write his reply in the Sea Snake’s blood. His lord father’s young widow had other notions, however. Lady Samantha was the daughter of Lord Donald Tarly of Horn Hill and Lady Jeyne Rowan of Goldengrove, both houses that had taken up arms for the queen during the Dance. Fierce and fiery and beautiful, this strong-willed girl had no intention of giving up her place as the Lady of Oldtown and mistress of the Hightower. Lyonel was but two years her junior, and ... had been infatuated with her since first she came to Oldtown to wed his father. Whereas previously she had fended off the boy’s halting advances, now Lady Sam ... yielded to them, allowing him to seduce her, and afterward promising to marry him… but only if he would make peace, “for I would surely die of grief should I lose another husband”. Faced with a choice between “a dead father, cold in the ground, and a living woman, warm and willing in his arms, the boy showed surprising sense for one so highborn, and chose love over honor”, says Mushroom. Lyonel Hightower capitulated, agreeing to all the terms put forth by Lord Corlys, including the return of the Crown’s gold ... A great scandal ensued when the young lord then announced his intention to marry his father’s widow, and the reigning High Septon ultimately forbade the marriage as a form of incest, but even that could not keep these young lovers apart. Thereafter refusing to wed, the Lord of the Hightower and Defender of Oldtown kept the Lady Sam by his side as his paramour for the next thirteen years, fathering six children on her, and finally taking her as his wife when a new High Septon came to power in the Starry Sept and reversed the ruling of his predecessor.

Fire and Blood (George R. R. Martin)

It's refreshing to read about a man, who remained faithful to a woman and married her as soon as he could, even if it took over a decade.

[stromuprisahat]

With Lord Corlys came his wife, Princess Rhaenys, five-and-fifty, her face lean and lined, her black hair streaked with white, yet fierce and fearless as she had been at two-and-twenty. “The Queen Who Never Was,” Mushroom calls her.

The Princess and the Queen × Fire and Blood (George R. R. Martin)

Tiny detail, but once again, I prefer the line from novella:

... a woman sometimes known among the smallfolk as “The Queen Who Never Was.”