Chapter Text
283 A.C
The Starry Maid
She should not be surprised when Eddard Stark enters her room, holding her brother’s sword, covered in sand and blood and men’s gore, his eyes, those lovely stranger’s eyes, a pit of war. Her life is now a mockery, the Gods’ cruellest joke. Nearly nothing remains to her now, save her lonely brother and a child’s room. She does not turn to him. The waves of the Torrentine are beautiful, frothy and an icy blue, even in the heat of the day. She imagines the coolness on her skin. The roar of the torrents. The sight of it. The smell of salt and brine. The crisp air in her mouth.
She sits on the balcony.
She waits.
She says nothing.
Sweat beads on her brow.
“Dawn, Lady Dayne”
Dawn. The light of the new sun. The sunshine in my brother’s hair as he trained, the gleam of his armour. Elia’s sun-kissed skin. Rhaenys’ smile. Her mother’s sunwarmed silk against her cheek.
She reaches out, both hands. He places it. Its weight should topple her, but she does not move. Perhaps she will never again.
She lays it upon her lap, stroking the fine leather scabbard. Her fingers traced the grooves, the detailing etched upon its face. Dawn was unique among all swords, they said. Forged from a fallen star. Yet the men who wielded it died all the same. All died, in blood, in pain.
She watched Eddard, his face near a mirror of hers. Another name, then, she thought, another cut down by war. Yet, it still surged. Still, there were more Castles to be plundered, more lives to be torn asunder. It is not done. It will never be done, never, never, never.
He kneels before her. Her Northern Knight, if only for a moment, a lifetime ago, shy and sweet. He kneels now, a man blooded. A man in truth, in acts, in his eyes - she can see it. The evil of man.
“I never-” a heave of breath, “I never wished for this, Ashara, it is- I could never-”
Her eyes flicker to the Torrentine.
“Stop,” she whispers, a subdued shock coming over her. This is the first word she has spoken in days. It is a fitting word. She wishes for everything to stop. Eddard, thank the gods, does. “I have lost a brother, you now a sister and brother both. Your apologies mean nothing. They do neither of us anything”
Silence reigns. Eddard does not move. She does not move.
Then-
A sniffle, followed by-
A cry. A singular, soft, sweet sound of a babe. She cannot help but feel shocked. Eddard stands again, and she notices, for the first time, the heavy travelling cloak wrapped around him, even in this heat. He turns away from her and unclasps his cloak, letting it fall to his feet. “I could not trust even a wetnurse to hold him,” he tells her. He turns to her again, and wrapped around him, in dirtied linen, like she’s seen washerwomen and scullery maids swaddle their infants, wrapped around them for safety, was a babe, only its soft head exposed.
She feels herself leave her chair, Dawn slipping to the floor. Her thighs are wet with blood again. She stops right in front of him as he attempts to soothe the babe. She knows, instinctively, where this child came from. Oh, that foolish girl, that awful hope. He pets the babe on its head, like it’s a pup begging to be given love.
“Give it to me”.
Eddard looks at her. “Ashara-” he starts, but she does not let him.
“No,” she says, “give it to me”.
He wets his lips. Perhaps he has noticed by now the state of her room. The day-old birthing bed. The cradle. The shape inside the cradle. The blood on her dress.
A man’s instinct wins out. Babes are the business of women. He picks the babe out from its makeshift cradle, one of his hands almost half the size of it- him.
A boy. If it were a girl-
He fits in the crook of her arm as if he were her own blood. He stops his wails, for a moment, to look up at her, his eyes a plum so dark they almost seemed black, set in a face that was all Stark, even now. “He looks like you,” she tells him, as she gently rocks the babe, “save the eyes”. His skin is as dark as Eddard's, as soft as satin, the smell of him milksweet.
“Aye, he carries the Stark look”
It is almost funny, even now, how they would not say the truth. Starfall was empty, Adric away at war, his betrothed awaiting him at Godsgrace, Allyria fostered away with her. Starfall was empty, and full of ghosts.
“I named her Lysara, you know”
Eddard stiffened. “A good name,” he says, as soft as he could manage. He casts his eyes over to the cradle, the swaddling, done so carefully, so lovingly. Danye purple linen. Love, in all it’s cruel faces. He moves closer to the cradle, and she sees him swipe a finger against Lysara’s cheek. He murmurs something over the cradle and bows his head. A prayer, in the Old Tongue, she guesses.
The babe in her arms fusses again, his small face twisting as he cries again. “Shh, shh, it’s alright, it’s alright,” she whispers to him. His skin is soft and warm, smelling faintly of blood and milk, a babe’s scent. Her Lysara smelt like that. Maybe she still did. Ashara had not held her since the sun rose, unwilling to feel her Lysara grow cold. Eddard’s boy kept his eyes locked on her, a strange sense of knowing in his sweet eyes, with his dark lashes against his dark, Northern skin. Warm, she thinks, as tears blur her eyes, he is so warm.
“What are you to do now, Eddard?”
Eddard leaves Lysara’s crib, his face crumbling under the weight of his own grief, coming to sit in a chair not too far from where Ashara stood. He shakes his head, his hair coming loose from the knot he’s tied it into. “He’s my bastard. My blood. I will bring him North, to be raised in Winterfell, as is his right. I- Howland offered to raise him, but-” he wiped a hand across his mouth, the rasp of his beard dragging against his palm, as if he was trying to wipe away some foul taste, “I am selfish. I could not bear it for him to be raised so far away from his home”.
“And your wife? What will she think of your bastard? A Southern woman will not bear a bastard growing up alongside her trueborn children”. Ashara watches the boy’s face, his soft cheeks and the gummy half-smile he is attempting. “And your-” she swallows her rage, her hate, that boils within her, that fountain of poison that will never end, “Your King, Baratheon? Will he not ask after your blood? Will he not have questions about his mother? The circumstances of his birth? What if the colour of his hair is not enough to save him?. Growth may change a boy, and his heritage may be questioned. Will your friend stay his hammer if he learns? Methinks not. He will dash this babe's head against a wall, just as he did Prince Aegon”.
The babe squirms in her arms again as she clenches him to her body. She pants for breath, not used to speaking so much nowadays. Ashara imagines, in the silence that now lives between her and Eddard, this babe, with his sweet, wise eyes, being cracked against the walls. Would Eddard wail, as Elia must have done. Plead? Cry? Or was that just the actions of women, living at the whim of men’s violence?.
“Robert will not question me. I will not offer a mother. He is mine; that is all that matters. And those responsible for the deaths of the Princess Elia, Rhaenys and the babe Aegon will face justice. That, I swear”
Ashara scoffs. “Justice,” she turns her back to him, facing out again towards the Torrentine. “There will be no justice. All that matters now is that the dragons are dead, or will be, if the siege on Dragonstone is broken, and the Throne is clear for your man step over the bodies of babes and women to sit upon it. Do you really think that those who ordered the deaths of the Princess and her children will really face your sword, Eddard?. I see your naivety has survived war. No, Elia’s death will go unanswered”.
“Ashara-”
“No!” She cannot help this outburst, tired of wolves worming their way into her heart, her life, her bed, only to leave it ruined in their wake, “No, Eddard, I will not hear you on this. Go home, to your fish-wife, while I mourn everything I once knew - my brother, my dearest friend, my Prince, their children, my heart and my daughter, and know, when your secret comes to life, which it will, know I will only mourn this boy, born of war, when he faces your friends' hammer!”
“What would you have me do then, Ashara? I cannot abandon him - I swore, swore, that I would keep him safe, and I cannot do that if I leave him for some other man to raise. He will be motherless, yes, but he will know a place, a home!”
Ashara huffs, picking up the babe to rest him on her shoulder, rubbing soothing circles onto his back, her feet aching with standing, but her own stubbornness refusing to sit now, the blood already tacky and dry on her inner thighs. “In the North, you treat bastards as a symptom to be solved - a mistake in war, or youthful foolishness, but here, in Dorne, bastards are not looked down upon, they are seen as full creatures, born of love or lust, both just as worthy, he will be mocked, in your home, with no mother, with the scorn of your wife upon his head”
Eddard left the chair and began pacing the room, “What then, do you suggest? I must go to the Capital, and the siege at Storm’s End must be lifted, as well as the question of Queen Rhaella, Prince Viserys and the unborn child, but I cannot risk returning right to the Capital with both the boy and Lyanna’s bones. It would raise questions. A thousand questions - and yet not one answer”
An answer. The boy would face misery in Winterfell, for certain, but perhaps Eddard’s love would be enough - but what of his future? No knighthood for a boy born of a Stark, and a sellsword's life could be a misery, what then? The Wall? The Citadel?. She presses her nose to his scalp, her lips brushing against his ear. A boy, alone in the world, save Eddard, who could never get too close.
Lysara, Lysara, Lysara
Her daughter had lived a scant few hours, but they were the best of Ashara’s life, even as she knew what was happening to her girl. The midwife had taken one look at her girl, and given the warning, but Ashara had banned the woman from her rooms. If her girl was going to be taken from her, her life would be spent in Ashara’s arms, with her curly brown hair and Stark features, even as her breath lessened, and her skin grew as blue as the river water.
This boy and her Lysara could have been twins, truly.
“Give him to me”
Eddard stops in his pacing, his boots skidding slightly against the stone floor. “What?”
“My daughter is dead. Your King will not question a Stark boy with those eyes with me. The whole Seven Kingdoms know we danced at that Tourney. He will not have to travel, and the question of his mother will be answered. He will be safe here, protected in Dorne, and face none of the scrutiny he would due to him being a bastard here than in the North,” she tells him, her heart racing. What am I doing, she thinks manically, I am mad - am I? One babe to replace another - like a folk tale, about river changelings.
“Ashara, I- I cannot ask that of you, with all you have lost”
“Then do not ask. I am telling you. I have been dishonoured, shamed, mocked, watched as nearly all those I love were killed, you killed mine own brother - this boy shall be recompense. I will raise him as mine, I will name him and love hi,m and he will call me mother. You will be a story, in your snowy Castle".
He will keep me from the waters.
She turns back to Lord Stark. He looks at her, truly, really, looks at her.
Then, he kneels to her. “My Lady. In another life-”
Yes, in another life. A different life. He would be a second son. She would love him. But now? Never, never, never.
“Shh, Eddard. This is not done. Rise, rise now”
He stands again, wincing as he climbs to his feet. “I am his father, you, his mother. He will be raised here, under the care of his mother-”
“And,” she interrupts, “when he comes of age, he will choose where he goes. I will write to you about him. I will organise his education. When he is a man grown, perhaps with kin and family of his own, I will tell him of his birth. I will not let him be a symbol men may use until he is dead on a battlefield somewhere. I will teach him of my gods, and yours. He will be my son. That is all”
Eddard bows his head. He is near close to tears. “Lysarra would have had a place, too, in Winterfell. She would have been loved”
She nods, the tears escaping her finally. It’s as though she has been crying for moons now, never stopping for breath. “Yes, she would have been”.
She goes to the crib, finally, looking down upon her daughter. Her skin is greying now, swaddled as tight as Ashara could manage in her pain, her eyes shut. Her eyes were the loveliest shade of grey-blue. She misses them already.
Lysara, Lysara, Lysara.
“Take her, and bury her beneath a tree on the bank of the Torrentine. Pray for her, and carry her in your heart, always, as I will. Return the bodies of our Princesses and Prince. Claim this boy as your bastard son. Send him gifts, so he knows you think of him. Do not name your daughters Lysarra; that is my daughter’s name, and it shall remain hers until we are both dead. Go now, Eddard Stark, and go home”
He nods, takes her daughter, handling her as he did her boy, delicately, as if trying not to wake her. As if she is just sleeping. He wraps the linen around him again, places her in the swaddle and reties his cloak about himself. He moves towards the door, making to leave, but stops.
“I had hoped to name him Jon - for my foster father”
“I will name him - one that suits him. Leave, Eddard. I will not ask again”
He leaves, and Ashara is left with her son. The room is quiet. Starfall is quiet. Her mind is silent, once again, her tears dried to her face in salty tracks. No, she will choose a different name. A name fit for a son of House Dayne. She places her babe in his crib, watching as he settles, his eyes blinking slowly.
Her son - her baby. Elia would have loved him, showered him with gifts, and Arthur would have been training him with a sword as soon as he could stand unassisted. A knight, maybe. A bastard of House Dayne could be a fine knight. The best, even, worthy enough of Dawn. That would be a good fate for her son. He would protect the Martell household and marry a minor lady. A name for that boy - who would be safe, and well-trained and well-respected, loved, even.
Aemon, Aemon, Aemon.
She collapses to the ground in front of the crib and begins to pray.
Mother above, have mercy. Protect him, keep him safe, let him breathe, let him live, save him, save him, save him, save me-
284 A.C
Ashara thinks there has never been a babe as quiet as Aemon ever to be born in Starfall. She was too young to remember Arthur being born, and Allyria had been as loud as any babe could be. Aemon, however, could be as silent as the grave, frightening her almost daily. Even when hungry, he simply-
Wriggled.
Like a tiny, beautiful worm, his legs kicking in the air, as if he longed to be walking already. He was seven moons now, or just thereabouts, and he was already sitting and babbling, always watching and curious about the wild world around him.
Also, incredibly invested in exploring this world by shoving objects into his mouth. River stones, his rattle, his teething wood, especially carved by Adric when Aemon began attempting to mouth his rattle. Ashara wished, slightly, that her son would stop attempting to swallow small objects and actually eat the food the servants had prepared for him.
“His lordship is attempting to eat his name-charm again, Ash,”
Ashara huffed, reaching over to where Aemon was sitting on the ground from her chair, gently encouraging Aemon to let go of his gummy grip on his charm, a rounded, polished riverstone, braided into a cord of purple tied loosely around his neck. Adric was half-reading some missive from a trading envoy, picking at his bowl of olives, discarding the ones he deemed ‘unsuitable’. Mother had hated that trait of Adric, who never ate his meals unless he had scoured through the whole plate to make sure nothing he disliked had been hidden under grilled trout or flatbread.
Aemon had been sitting, surrounded by soft cushions on the floor of Adric’s chambers while she and her brother broke their fast, playing with the dust motes from the morning sun, dressed in his white linen tunic, his tuft of dark hair standing upon his head like he had taken a lick from a horse. She ran her fingers across his soft scalp, watching as his dark, plum eyes gazed up at her.
“He’s curious, is all. He’ll grow into an intelligent boy,” Ashara told him, leaning away from her boy to dip her bread in some oil. “Any news, as of late, or am I to hear the issues of my home from servants' gossip?”
Adric sighed, dropping his sheaths of paper onto their table. “Ashara, I did not trouble you with news as of late due to Aemon. You are a new mother, with a young babe, and with all that…occurred, I did not wish to stress you. I have advisors for a reason”.
Ashara scowled, dipping her fingers into the shallow bowl of water beside her to clear the oil, “Aemon is moons old now, and weaning from my milk. I have more experience than you do in courtly politics, and Father afforded me the same education he did you and - and Arthur both. We are in a strange position now, with King’s Landing, as well as with Uncle Vance.” She leaned over the table to take her brother’s hand in hers. “Rely on me, brother.” She smiled, letting her anger leave through her, as she often had to, these days, “Or would you rather I sit in my rooms and embroider napkins all day?”
Adric laughed quietly, squeezing her hand, his face almost sad. “I worried, Ashara. You, all alone here, with only a single midwife to guide you through Aemon’s birth, with all you had suffered already. Birth is a battlefield even Arthur would have feared, and I - I do not wish for you to suffer anymore”
Ashara pulled back, feeling Aemon tug at her skirt. She lifted him upon her lap, letting him drink in the amazing sight of a table. “Suffering is a most vital part of life, brother, now, how goes our tolls?”
“Stable, trading dipped, but the boats are returning, as well as our taxes - that’s not what has me worried. An invitation came, late yesterday. A Royal Messenger".
Ashara rolled her eyes. Their new King was a farce, propped up by the ageing Lord of Arryn, a drunk whoremonger, a violent, cruel man. A joke. “I shall guess - a wedding? The Usurper desires a bride to cement his rule”.
Adric nodded. “Yes. I assume an invite went out to the larger Dornish Houses, as well as Sunspear. I doubt anyone will attend, perhaps one minor Lord or two for pretences. He intends to marry Cersei Lannister”
Lannister!
How dare they - a spit, a boot-kick straight into the memory of Princess Elia, no justice, no trials for her killers, and their new King marries the daughter of the man who allowed her death. No justice, only a reward for her killers!. Ashara could hardly believe it - no, she could, she could imagine the callousness of men, their hate and mockery of the kindest, most beautiful woman to ever live.
“Monsters,” she breathed out, curling her arms around Aemon as he wriggled in her lap. “An injustice - gods, do they have no shame, no honour? No trial for Elia, Rhaenys or Aegon, but a marriage for the lions”. Her food curdled in her stomach, acid rising in the base of her throat. She had often wondered how Elia would react to Ashara now. She had protected Ashara when her condition became clear, sending her away from Dragonstone, telling her to be safe in Starfall while her belly grew. Ashara had begged Elia to come with her, to hide away, but Elia had been so steadfast in Rhaegar that she had stayed. Elia had been as she always was, kind and brave and beautiful, and she still died as they all had. Oh, friend, forgive me.
“It is an insult of the highest degree. I’ve sent a raven to Prince Doran, but I imagine he is of the same mind, to say nothing of Oberyn - it is a sham, and an affront to the Princess’s memory.” Adric pushed away his food, as if just as disgusted with the food as Ashara was now. “I imagine this will only fuel tensions at the Red Keep - even The Reach would be able to see this act as the slight that it is”
Ashara swallowed around her nausea, picking up some warmed rice mashed with fragrant ground almonds with her fingers and letting Aemon mouth at it. “What is to be done, then? Are we to take this lying down - let Elia’s memory be desecrated this way?”
Adric stood up, moving around the table to stand beside her, watching Aemon as he was fed.”House Dayne cannot do much, sister. Doran will decide what to do, if we are to do anything at all. Elia will be avenged, but we are weak now and alone. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. We shall follow our Prince, and until then, we wait”. He bent down to pick Aemon up, settling him in his arms, “and we raise the next generation, who will know of the injustices brought down on us, hm, Aemon? Perhaps you will wield Dawn, and make your uncle proud in the seven heavens, and restore justice to our land?”
Ashara smiled weakly, “Perhaps”. She watched as Adric and Aemon stared at each other, their eyes a mirror of each other, curious and adoring, both shades of the deepest purple, Adric’s hair a deep black against his nephew’s light brown. “Or you will go childless, and Aemon will be legitimised and named Lord Dayne”.
Adric laughed, a real smile breaking across his tanned, weathered face, already lined with stress at four-and-twenty. “Yes! A better alternative at least than letting a cousin from High Hermitage come along and take the Pale Chair”.
Ashara took a drink of lemon-sweetened tea, trying to settle her stomach. “Speaking of heirs, how is Rhona?”
Her brother paled slightly, his fine purple silk tunic wrinkling as Aemon kicked and squirmed in his arms. “Ah. Well. Rhona is…well. The wedding is apparently taking longer than expected. Her mother keeps writing about good stars to marry under and other such stuff…I think she’s waiting for another star to fall upon us till she and the Lord of Godsgrace will agree to a date. Rhona keeps writing about how her mother will send her to an early grave with Wedding planning. I already have the dowry to sort - to be honest, sister, perhaps I shall run away with Rhona to be a sellsword, and you may be Lady of Starfall, and Aemon your heir”.
Aemon apparently took issue with being named heir and began fussing loudly, a series of “maa, maa’s” escaping him. “Your uncle is not enough for you, Aemon? Hm? Come here, my little star, Mama will protect you”. Adric passed Aemon to her, and she was immediately comforted by the milk scent of him. Her precious boy.
“Speak to me later, I’ll write to Lady Allyrion, and see if a woman’s touch may soften the old toad - hopefully you may still be married before Aemon or Allyria are grown. I should put this pup down for a nap”.
She lifted Aemon further up and left, her fitted skirts brushing the smooth, whitened stone as she left. Guards, in their Starfall livery, saluted as she passed from Adric’s quarters into the open courtyard of the personal rooms, the smell of river-salt and warmed stone soothing her nerves. Elia had loved Starfall when she visited her on progression, once, a lifetime ago. Ashara could almost imagine her now, her dark hair loose around her shoulders in the courtyard, dressed in fine, pale yellow - so fine on her sun-kissed skin, sitting on a low bench in the shade as Aegon and Aemon played in one of the shallow pools. Rhaenys sat at her mother’s knee, laughing together as they used to do.
Tears pricked at her eyes. Her dearest friend. Her warm, dark eyes, and her lovely smile, how she had comforted Ashara when it became clear what her condition meant, how she had protected her children, how she had loved them, how full of life she was, even after years of sickness. She pressed her mouth to Aemon’s head. It was not fair how monsters lived where the good died. Elia should be queen now, her children prince and princess, beloved by the people. Instead, Cersei Lannister would gain that, while Elia…rotted. Decayed. Forgotten by time as a dead woman, when she should be living, a kind Queen to rival Queen Alysanne. Ashara hated it, hated how life could continue as her kindest friend was dismissed by the world because she was gentle and good and died.
In a daze, she walked to her apartments and left Aemon with the wetnurse, an older woman named Wylla. Elia should be alive, she thought desperately as she wandered the halls. Elia should be Queen, should be happy and healthy, she should know of Aemon, and send him such thoughtful gifts, and tell Ashara she could return to court with Aemon when the boy was grown…
She was in the Sept. Not the larger one, but the personal one in the family apartments. It had no grand, austere decor, or even seven-pointed stars, but it was quiet and cool, and she could not see the river, but instead the mountains that bordered their home. I mustn’t see the river, I mustn’t. She knew she had to stay away from the river, with its diamond blue waves and sweet coolness, especially when she was like this. It would call to her, and Aemon would be alone, all alone, and could she be that selfish?. No, no, she couldn't. She would not. So instead, she prayed.
She prayed for Elia, for Rhaenys and Aegon, for the Prince Visery and Rhaella’s babe. She prayed for the souls of Prince Rhaegar and her own brother, Arthur. She prayed for Queen Rhaella. She prayed for Prince Lewyn. She prayed for her Mother and Father. She prayed and prayed and prayed. She prayed for, she prayed for-
Forgive me, Forgive me, Forgive me.