AUTHOR'S NOTE AND DISCLAIMER: This is a short (very short) fic about Ashara Dayne from ASOIAF which may or may not turn into a much larger story following the current timeline (and perhaps more show centric). When we get to the end, I'll let you know. This is a work of fanfiction. All familiar characters/characterizations belong to GRRM and/or D&D. Thanks for reading!

Dusk

They say many things about me. Men talk, women mutter, children listen. The world spins and spins like a banner caught in the sea breeze. I can only imagine that they'll talk more after this is finished.

Let them talk. Let them think what they want. The truth is a far graver thing.

No stolen or stillborn child pushes me to this brink. I want you to know that. My murdered brother's sword returned…no, not that either.

When I was a girl, I used to stand in the water. Down there, among those slick, black stones peeking out from high tide, I would watch ships sailing away from me, out into the sparkling, cerulean blue waters of the Summer Sea. I would wait until nightfall, when the sliver of moon rose over the Red Mountains, casting a silver sheen over gray twilight. The stars would peek out from their perches, watching, waiting, their reflections caught as little flecks of light in the deep black of unsettled water.

I was waiting too. Like those stars in the sky. But my salvation never came.

When I danced with Barristan Selmy that night at Harrenhal, I was tempted to tell him all. There are certain souls that reach out to our own and when I looked into that knight's sad blue eyes, I saw something deeper than the flash-flame, fair-weather affection I've received from other men. He said nothing to me of his desire, though it was there, palpable as the gentle touch of his large hand enveloping mine.

It's for the best. He couldn't have saved me. My fate was written in the stars long before I was born. And our fates are immoveable as the mountains.

Ned Stark, too. That damn fool. I told him enough. He knew enough. And still, he brought Arthur's sword back to me. Still, he looked me in the eye and told me that the Sword of the Morning was dead and that he was the one who killed him.

With his own sword. With Dawn. He left that part out…but I knew. Looking into a wolf's eyes, you can see all manner of truth.

A star slain by a star. It's the worst form of blasphemy.

I wept for my brother and I let Ned Stark hold me while I wept. More blasphemy. I shouldn't have let him touch me. Not with Arthur's blood on his hands. But I did, not understanding the tangle of emotions that mixed up in my heart—hot rage and cold despair at Arthur's death, the warm familiarity in Ned's embrace, hatred and fear and the dying gasp of young love put to the sword and drawn out, bleeding. I just wanted someone to hold me. And so I let him. Until the sound of a waking newborn broke me out of black grief, my violet eyes seeking out the sound and finding a foundling child cradled in Howland Reed's arms.

I looked at Ned and he looked at me. I started to shake with the secret I saw reflected in his eyes and pulled away from his embrace too quickly, as if burned by fire. Dragon fire. Or doused in ice. Sheets and sheets of winter's sputtering blue flames.

The child cried for its dead mother and the men tried to comfort it unsuccessfully. They were still in battle dress, blood and dirt still stuck beneath their fingernails. A child of ice and fire, born in blood and violence and now, brought to Starfall.

The prophesies swirling back to life in that moment were too numerous to count. The fevered dreams of my youth fell back on me like a flood. I felt the room spinning and Dawn shimmered with a white brilliance that burned brighter through the saltwater tears that otherwise blinded my vision. The ancient words of my house echoed through my head, again and again and again.

I closed my eyes. And all the while the orphan child's cries for its mother continued, filling the great, high chambers of Starfall with the loneliest, bleakest sound in all the world. I couldn't stay in that room a moment longer.

I locked myself in this tower and I haven't come out since.