Prompt: Wishing on a falling star.
where are you now, are you lost?
Since she was a little girl, Ashara has always been taken by the stars. She would spend hours upon hours on her back gazing up at the black infinite dotted with silver, methodically identifying all the constellations she knew and making up names for the ones she didn't. The Sword of the Morning was her favorite even before she knew what it was; to her eye, the star at the hilt always shone a bit purple, just like the amethyst inlaid in Dawn's pommel.
"It's your star," she told Arthur the day Father gave him their ancestral sword, hugging him with all her might. "It's always been yours, big brother."
He'd smiled at her, warmth in his eyes, the same eyes she saw in the mirror. The morning he left for King's Landing to commit himself wholly to the crown, he'd kissed her on the forehead, promising that just because he was swearing vows didn't mean he was giving her up.
"I know you'll always be there," she'd said. "As long as I see Dawn in the sky, I'll know you're all right."
Every night without fail, she waits up until she sees the twinkling purple-white star, and only then will she allow herself to fall asleep. Elia sits with her too once she discovers Ashara's habit, and they make a game out of inventing scenarios of what Arthur must be doing at that moment, each one more grandiose and improbable than the next. It's more difficult when the summer storms roll in and obscure the heavens, but even then, they always locate it in the end no matter how long it takes.
She hates herself for continuing the practice when the war is on, for whether he'd wanted to or not, her brother had helped insult their princess, and she can never forgive him for that. Yet look she does, and there he always is.
"Oh, Arthur, what are you doing? Where are you?" she would whisper. She's alone, now; Elia hasn't joined her since the day they found out what Rhaegar had done.
Long before Ned Stark comes to Starfall, she knows. She feels it in her heart first, a stabbing pain ever unceasing, but it isn't until she gazes up into the darkness, desperately searching for the star, pleading with all seven gods, that she truly understands her worst nightmare has come to pass. Learning of what had happened to Elia and the children had brought her within a breath of shattering, had cracked spiderwebs into her very bones; this does the rest.
She screams. She screams until not even the violent Torrentine can silence her, until she can scream no more, until there is nothing left.