A/N: Hello everyone, I'm back with a new chapter today Some of yous 'complained' about not enough Beric/Ashara last chapter, so be warned that you'll have your wish... ;)
Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones or any of its characters. I merely own my main OC Ashara, as well as some minor OCs. The plot is mine, although inspired by the TV series.
9. The scars that we bear
300 A.C. Somewhere in the Stormlands
Ashara lifted the pouch of gold she'd earned from some hunting earlier that week. It was decent, but still not enough to gain her passage to Essos, where her father had been sighted.
It'd been two years. Two years since she first heard his name in conversation. Something about a dragon princess, a Targaryen girl having survived her family's fall; something about the people who had sworn to protect her; something about Jorah Mormont.
At first she had felt confused. She had heard that he and that whore Lynesse had settled on the Isle of Lys after his demise, so if he had gone down to the Dothraki Sea it could only mean that his marriage to the bitch had been terminated.
And then she felt elated. Finally she had proof that he was still alive and thriving. And possibly trying to find a way back to her. Or to Westeros, more like. He, like everyone else, must have thought her dead, after all.
For a moment after learning that news, Ash had felt like a sixteen-year-old again. She had longed for her father's embrace and for the easy life she had led back on Bear Island. Then she had remembered who and what she was now. A sellsword, for lack of a better term. She sold her services to those in need of it.
She still didn't trust many people, especially men, with their prying eyes and hands, and with their thirst for any kind of power, be it the power to make her life miserable.
She was still gauging the amount of gold she still needed to gain for passage when she heard the unmistakeable sounds of clanking steel nearby.
She was being surrounded by armed men.
Reaching for her bow at her back, she only had time to place her fingers on the wood before an arrow whooshed next to her ear and traced a line of blood on her cheek. Great. Another scar to add to the list.
The archer appeared into view, a mop of dark hair and a face hidden by a long-bow she immediately was dazzled by. Those things were hard to wield.
He was no doubt about to fire another arrow when he suddenly tilted the head to the side and she caught sight of a pair of dark eyes. "Blimey, I know that face!" He stepped into the light, and Ash froze.
All around her, seven men exited the bushes, intrigued by the archer's demeanour. She stared at him dead-on, and realised quite quickly that he was familiar.
Very familiar.
"Anguy?"
Of all the people she thought she'd meet on the roads, Anguy was definitely not one of them. Not that she had forgotten about Beric Dondarrion and his companions, no, the memory of them was sometimes too vivid to her liking; but she had in all honesty thought that they had gone back to their homes after their deed in the Riverlands had been done.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, lad!" Anguy laughed as he approached her horse.
She dismounted and grinned. "It's not far from the truth, actually, archer." She had not hidden her voice under masculine tones this time, and he visibly started.
"Blimey, so he was telling the truth after all! You're not a lad at all, are you?"
Ash tilted her head to the side. She remembered, as clear as day, as Beric told her he'd keep her secret. Had he lied? "Who said that? Not that it's wrong, for I am indeed not a man, but out of curiosity?"
Anguy let out a loud bark of laughter before he patted her shoulder. "Well now I regret all the crass jokes I made! And just so you know, Thoros kept talking about it after we separated. Kept babbling about how you couldn't possibly be a guy and blabla and blabla. Didn't believe the old goat until now! Lord of Light be damned, I was a blind fool!"
Lord of Light? She wondered what that was all about, but chose instead to direct her gaze to the people surrounding her. None of them she recognized from before. Had Anguy joined another band of soldiers after Riverrun?
He seemed to understand her silent questioning, for he sighed. "We lost a lot of people on that blasted battlefield. A lot. Benji, Cadmus, Evan…even Beric for a while."
"What do you mean 'for a while'?" Ash had felt something rather unpleasant at the mention of Beric's demise, however 'brief'. And she didn't like that feeling at all.
"Well, you'll see if you accompany us, milady," he bowed as if mocking her, and she rolled her eyes before crossing her arms on her chest. That was a very womanly thing to do, but she didn't feel threatened by the group of men, even if one or two of them were eyeing her too greedily to her taste…
"Stop calling me that, my name is still Ash, and I don't know where I'd be following you or to whom."
Anguy smiled widely. "Prudence, I like it. Well, darling, maybe you've heard of the Brotherhood without Banners? That's us, and Beric and Thoros are leading us. I can't reveal where though, and you'll have to be blindfolded eventually."
She computed this information carefully and slowly. The Brotherhood without Banners. Unless she had been living under a rock for two years – which she had, in all honesty – she had heard about that group of thugs helping the poor by killing the bullies and criminals. She had not, however, heard that their leaders had been former road-companions of hers.
This was an interesting development.
She smirked. "If you don't mind me demanding that, Anguy, I'd rather make sure you're the one blindfolding the lady. I'm not stupid enough not to notice that 'brotherhood' implies there are no women in your merry group, and I'm not fond of being groped."
Anguy threw a harsh glance to his companions, then a softer one to her. "On my honour, Ash, no one will touch you."
"Then lead the way, archer," she said as she tugged on her horse's reins.
They walked in companionable conversation for about two hours, weaving through trees at a leisure pace. Anguy told Ashara about the Battle of Mummer's Ford – which had taken place in the Trident and not near Riverrun as she had expected – and the loss they suffered there. Of the hundred men that had gathered to stop Gregor Clegane's actions, only a handful had survived, and Beric had been stabbed through the chest by a lance before being unwittingly resurrected by Thoros.
That part she had trouble believing. After years on the road, Ashara had stopped believing in the Old Gods she had worshipped in her youth. She had not witnessed any godly deed in all these years – nearly seven – that she'd been travelling, and had difficulties imagining that one or several almighty entities might want the land to be ridden with thieving and murdering scum as it was then.
But Anguy explained that Thoros was a priest of Rh'llor, the Lord of Light, the One True God, and that his faith had permitted Beric to rise from the dead more than once. In fact, if he was telling the truth, Beric had been resurrected no less than five times.
She didn't believe it, but she wondered what power could Thoros wield to make earthy folk like Anguy and his companions – who had been zealously nodding during his speech – convert to his beliefs.
At one point, Anguy placed a black sack over her head and gently led her forward without ceasing to talk to her, his own way of proving that he was indeed the one touching her back and not one of the other men. He directed her when she needed to lift her feet higher, and though she stumbled once or twice on roots – or rocks, she couldn't tell the difference – he steered her well enough that once they'd stopped, she was unharmed.
At long last he removed the sack from over her head, and Ash blinked in the relative light of the place she had been brought to.
It was a cave, dimly lit by several fires if you didn't count the light of day coming from behind her. It seemed damp, and the walls had a definite reddish hue to them as if they were made of mud. She could see several horses haltered near the entrance, and one man went to place her own mount with the others. In another corner, sacks of provisions lay on a bed of sand to keep them dry; and another corner yet provided bedrolls and a relative intimacy for those who wished to rest. The cave seemed deep enough, and if the firelight dancing on the far walls was any indication, it was occupied to the fullest.
Two figures rose as the group appeared – or rather as her face was revealed. She had no trouble identifying the first, for Thoros was as always clad in red with a canteen in his hand. His eyes seemed amused enough by her presence, but he didn't say anything and chose to look at his companion.
She had to repress a gasp when she recognized Beric in the face of this stranger. She wondered if it was truly him for a moment, but remembered the glint in his eyes and the mop of blonde hair. That was really the only thing she could identify until he chose to speak. His voice was unmistakeable.
But until then, her eyes danced on the scars he displayed. His neck was a mess, angry marks and bubons of flesh distorting what had once been smooth skin. She could see a long angry scar on one side of his chest, for his shirt was slightly open; but the biggest change was on his face. He had only one eye left, the right one being hidden by an eye-patch that left little to imagination when it came to its use. He had lost it.
He was staring at her curiously, not like someone who was seeing a ghost from the past, but like someone who was receiving a foreign guest.
She feared what it meant.
He turned his one eye to Anguy then, and asked "Who's this then?"
