Asha

Her lip curled. She couldn't help it. The famed Kingslayer, terror of the tourney fields, famed son of Lord Tywin and infamous sisterfucker, looked like a haggard farmer. Lannister pulled his glove off and waved his golden hand to prove his identity. When nothing but hot air tumbled past his teeth, Asha let the laughter come. "This one's got less hot blood in him than some dead men I've known." Her words took everyone from the dragon queen to the man himself aback. "Well, look at him! A stiff wind would put him on his aging ass." her hand came up and she gestured at him. "The dwarf could best him sword to sword." "We get your meaning, Lady Asha." Tyrion said tersely. "Bugger your family awkwardness, Lannister. We're all waiting for something out of myth to stride in and brandish some ruby-encrusted golden sword and instead we get the bits of Cersei that weren't woman enough to be born a girl themselves." The Dornishwomen smirked in turn at this. Even the rosy hag seemed distantly amused. "Can I run him through now?" Tully asked, a man after her own lord father's heart in terms of cheerfulness. He isn't afraid, only anxious, Asha noticed, giving the Kingslayer a second look. He knows he isn't leaving Dragonstone alive and yet that much doesn't bother him. But something does. "Right." He cut through the murmurs and sudden conversations with a single word. "I know what you're thinking, but trust me when I say you need to listen to me. After, you can poke me full of holes or feed me to a dragon or just toss me down those hellish steps and see if I bounce." he said, face a blunt bemused grin. The queen looked to Tyrion. "Is he deranged?" she asked, sounding almost curious. "I'd rather not speak of matters in public when they're meant only for your ears, Your Grace." he said, shrugging. "If you prefer I can blurt out every depravity of Aerys' where everyone can hear." The color rose in the queen's cheeks immediately. "You murdered my father. You can see how I'm having difficulty granting your request." she said, trying hard to keep her composure. A man you've never met sitting a throne you've never seen, Asha thought. My own father was a deluded cunt who left his wife to haunt Ten Towers like a sea-shade. "I killed his pyromancers, too." Lannister said, making Tyrion frown deeply, as well as the robed eunuch.

The queen gave no reaction, likely because she had no idea what the significance of Lannister's words was. Neither do I, Asha thought. Lannister shrugged. "Last chance, Your Grace. Surely it's enough to live under Aerys' shadow without his every atrocity fresh in your vassals' minds." He spoke as if it were nothing to him, the queen before him just another face on the road to the grave. That is not how a liar speaks, Asha thought. The queen seemed resolute not to rise to the bait. He looked over his shoulder. "Waters. Take her outside and wait with her. Bronn will fetch you when it's time." When a stripling in the crowd's cheeks rounded in a pout the bull on two legs behind her simply scooped her up in his massive arms and carried her out of the room. "Speak, ser." Asha had for a moment forgotten Theon was standing next to her, but it seemed he had quite found his voice. "It seems the laughing wastrel from the feast at Winterfell has gone." Lannister replied. "Nobody can deny that Aerys was little more than a wild animal that wore the title of king. Aegon the Unworthy's crown was too big for his head and sat low around his brow, giving him an appearance one would associate with a mitered ape. He shrank from every shadow, screamed himself hoarse at those he thought disloyal before exiling them or worse and looked like something a drunken mason would carve to accompany the gargoyles on the ramparts of Dragonstone. It wasn't that though, that bade me draw my sword on him. By the end, he could not bestir himself to ravage Queen Rhaella unless a man had burned that day. One evening mauling, when the queen's cries were too much for the boy who became the man you see, he turned to Ser Jonothor Darry, a fellow Kingsguard member. Surely another white cloak would join him in putting an end to it. Protecting the queen is a duty of the Kingsguard, after all. Instead he was told protecting Queen Rhaella was not his duty if it meant protecting her from Aerys. Perhaps then the veneer fell away. Or when that boy watched the Mad King burn the Lord of Winterfell while his heir strangled himself in a Tyroshi torture device trying to save his father, all while the honorable white cloaks simply watched. By the time Aerys made butt-boys of the pyromancers, that boy could only wait to see what happened next. News of the Trident set events in motion. When Aerys saw the war was lost, he decided he'd make a pyre for himself as his ancestors had had. Wildfire caches strewn about the city, major buildings and beggar's hovels. He would not be parted from his capital, he would not be parted from his throne. Burn them all, he kept saying. I took matters into my own hands that night. I was not about to let a madman turn a city of half a million people into a smoking hole. Honor be damned, vows be damned, gods be damned. I killed the pyromancer and then Aerys, running my golden sword through his twisted back and across his gurgling throat before the words of his house could ring true. Then I sat on the throne that had cut him time and again and waited for whatever came next. Later on, years after Robert's Rebellion, Barristan Selmy liked to give me this disdainful look, the same look Eddard Stark gave me when he found me sitting on the Iron Throne with Aerys lying on the floor staining it with blood and shit. If honor meant letting a madman claw and rend a woman's flesh because he has a ring of gold around his head, if honor meant letting a madman set five hundred thousand souls aflame, if honor meant one man was more important than all the rest put together, I decided, then honor was more dangerous than all the wildfire in the world."

Jaime Lannister looked as though he'd aged thirty years in five minutes. No one spoke, no one moved, no one breathed. He held his hands out to his sides. "If you are going to kill me, now is the time. I don't know what honorable Ser Barristan Selmy or Lord Eddard Stark would have done in my place. I don't care. Vows did not stop me from protecting the realm from Aerys. Should you follow in his footsteps I pray that someone follows in mine, and protects the realm from you." he turned to Tully. "Am I meant to be afraid? Do I look like I want to live? I may know what Cersei's cunt feels like, but I've yet to sink my teeth into her breast so hard it tears. The same could not be said of Aerys. Call me Kingslayer, call me Sisterfucker, call me Man Without Honor, call me what you like until your wits fail you. I know who I am. Someone who would make the choice nobody else would, put a stop to horrors nobody else would." he smiled, a truly terrifying sight. "I can die knowing I put the realm first." He refocused on the queen. "Aerys was a monster. Knights kill monsters. All the songs say so. In some of the scary ones though, the monster kills the knight. Which is it to be?" his green eyes bored into the queen without a hint of fear or pity. A soft sound like silk on flowers made Asha turn to the left to make sure she'd heard something in the first place. The Naathi. "You speak of our queen as though her father made her what she is." Her voice made Lannister blink. "Are you fucking deaf? There's still enough wildfire beneath King's Landing to make it disappear if one of her lizards so much as farts over it. I killed the other pyromancers Aerys had recruited in the days after the Sack, but I never found all the caches." "Daenerys is not a queen because she is a certain man's daughter. She is a queen because she spent her youth among the defenseless and the abused, and refused to stand by and let the scourge of slavery continue. Uncounted men women and children from the days of Grazdan the Great to modern day perished in chains and no one so much as batted an eye. It was as you said, the way of things. She put an end to it not for gain or support, but because she knew slavery to be wrong." The Naathi seemed to be trying to find common purpose in Daenerys Targaryen and Jaime Lannister. "Bully for her. So she's an idealist. Idealists can be zealots. Call me prejudiced, but I'm not keen on letting Aerys' daughter flit about the realm on dragonback, least of all near the capital." Lannister said. The queen's mouth moved, her cheeks red and eyes watering. It took her a moment it seemed to Asha before she realized no sound was coming out. "You say there is still wildfire I King's Landing, enough to present a problem in the event I attack it." she finally got out, eyes starting to slowly stream. She is strong, Asha thought, feeling seasick. Her voice did not break. Gods, please don't let me throw up. "Your Grace, you may think the Iron Throne your purpose. If you move on King's Landing, you are condemning everyone inside."

The thought of stopping, of simply remaining on Dragonstone, seemed to Asha most unlike the woman she'd met in Meereen. Daenerys could charm anyone, but she could not hide her streaming eyes or her trembling lip. When she spoke though, her voice was firm. "You need not remain with me, my lords. Keep the peace and protect your smallfolk and you'll need never think on me again." She's talking to us, Asha realized. Her lords of Westeros such as we are. "You needn't fear me, ser. Drogon will not take me up any longer and his brothers have been missing for weeks. If you wish to know why I haven't yet moved on the capital, the best reason is because I needn't. Therealreason is because I can't-" "The dragon's name is Drogon?" Lannister cocked an eyebrow and looked to his brother. "Imaginative." "Named for my first husband, ser. The one my brother sold me to for a hope of a homecoming." Daenerys said, cheeks red again. "Homecoming? Well then, you've quite the army of your own, a navy to match, and you've come back to Westeros at last. Do you feel you are home, Your Grace?" the cripple replied. He looked around at the assembly of lords. "You're missing the stormlands, the Vale and the North. Assuming the Reach and Dorne will follow an old maid and a kinslaying whore, respectively. Speaking of.." he snorted lordly and spat just as Ellaria Sand opened her mouth for a fiery retort. Asha gagged when Lannister's aim proved true and the woman instantly threw up. "That's for Myrcella." he said sullenly. Tyrell broke out in the most blissful smile, an outright glow, and she looked at the man with unabashed shameless fondness. "As for the North, I might be able to smooth things over for you considerably." "No need." Daenerys said, looking green herself. "I've already sent a raven to Winterfell inviting Lord Bolton to come to Dragonstone." Uh oh, Asha thought as Theon frowned. "Bad idea. Roose Bolton is a bloodless fiend and his bastard is truly worthy of the term. I'd show you in particular but I don't want to make you vomit, too." he told the queen. "Who needs the Boltons?" Lannister said. "I've got an infinitely better option waiting outside."

His men duly went out to fetch the pair who'd left earlier. What's this all about? Asha thought curiously, eager to move on from the topic of the queen's father. The lad returned with his stripling in tow, a small girl with dark hair and grey eyes. When she noticed them all staring, she slowly shrank behind her friend. "Oi. This is the part where you introduce yourself." Lannister said, pulling the bull out of the way. "Um. Hello, I'm Arya Stark. The last Stark, the Lone Wolf, Queen in the North as my brother Robb's heir." she said. Asha was ready to laugh herself breathless until Theon stepped off the dais. "Heard you were dead." he said. "Heard you were worse." she replied. "Am." he explained. The girl looked him over. "I miss Father." she told him. "Me too." he told her and they briefly embraced. Seven hells, she's real? Asha thought. Tully came off the dais next, staring incredulously. The girl recognized the black fish on his nape. "I was thinking about going to you when I was on the run in the riverlands. Instead I went to Braavos and spent two years in the alleys. I shouldn't have left." she said. If this is how all northerners talk, short and to the point, I could move there at war's end, Asha thought. "If you don't believe I am who I say I am, if you don't believe Theon, my wolf is at the castle gates. She won't come in, I guess because of the Valyrian magic in the place, but Nymeria's always been willful." "You brought a direwolf to Dragonstone?" Daenerys asked, surprised. "Nobody stopped me." Arya Stark shrugged. Tully didn't seem convinced, suspicious as men of his cast always seemed to be, and he strode off to go look. "He knew your brother and his wolf both." Lannister explained to her. "Once he sees, he'll come 'round." "Don't know about that. A man like that is only happy when he's angry. Balon Greyjoy was the same way." Theon said. "Bugger Father, I want to see one of these famed direwolves." Asha said, hopping off the dais and making her way out of the room. Her flippant comment hid her feeling that standing there amid such enmity had simply gotten too uncomfortable. Out in the sun with the wind blowing off the Narrow Sea it became much harder to brood on the evils of the past. Asha saw no wolf, but then the girl had vanished too. She heard an exasperated voice out on the knoll and the shouts of surprised Dothraki and freedmen and headed after them.

Seven hells, she thought as the beast came into view. The direwolf sat in the sun, looking curiously at the bronze-skinned people circled around her, Tully among them. Stark sat at her feet, grinning ear to ear. Even sitting on her haunches the animal could look a tall man in the eye. "Didn't know Grey Wind would have got bigger. Wonder how many Freys she's eaten." Tully murmured. "She's got special wolves for that, Uncle." Arya said, standing on her toes to scratch behind the wolf's ears. "Besides, Freys don't make good eating with their weasel chins and pointed heads. Kill their horses though and they can't get away." This made Tully snort in amusement. "There's a bit of Robb, I think." "She's bigger than a horse." Asha said, knees a bit weak despite her bravado. "Aye. Queen of the Fords and no mistake." Arya replied. It shocked Asha how aware the creature was. In her experience wolves either mauled your horse or ran away, yet Nymeria as Arya called her simply sat there and let them stare. A queen indeed, Asha thought. A pair of small gasps alerted her to Daenerys' presence and that of her Naathi friend. The queen stared at Nymeria with her lips parted, looking nothing less than awed. This from the girl who's been on dragonback, Asha thought. The black dragon could have scarcely had a different temperament, though. He was huge and terrifying but he was also moody, whiny and hogged his mother, always screaming at anyone who approached. Nymeria looked at the men around her as if they were simply food she wasn't hungry enough to eat. "When I was with Drogo on the Dothraki Sea, sometimes he would hunt hrakkar, white lions that oft make meals of men and horses both. It took him and his bloodriders all day to track and kill one, I still have its pelt. You would need no pack to kill a dozen in the same time." she told the wolf quietly, reverently. Where the Naathi remained quite content to keep herself out of mauling range as Asha herself did, Daenerys turned to the girl at Nymeria's side. "May I pet her?" "Direwolves are no more pets than dragons are. Like most wild things, they seldom like men's hands on them." Arya replied, Nymeria's nose twitching in the direction of the queen. She does not miss a word, Asha saw. "We all had one, but I'd guess the rest are dead. Except maybe Ghost. He's with my brother Jon Snow at the Wall." "I wonder what Lord Bolton will say to Lord Eddard Stark's daughter?" Theon mused, coming up the knoll toward them. "Lannister's sellsword started taking wagers how long it would take for someone to murder him. I put you in at sunup, Asha." he said, looking around. "Where's the dragon?" "Probably sleeping. Midday is when the herds on the northern shore are most alert, scattering when Drogon appears overhead. It isn't worth chasing goats down one at a time when you're his size." the queen explained tonelessly, still obviously quite taken with the direwolf. "Are there more?" Arya Stark shrugged. "Not in the Seven Kingdoms. Beyond the Wall, maybe. I'm not about to go check." "Sadly, neither am I. Silverwing was bigger than Drogon is now and still she would not take Alysanne past the Wall." Daenerys said, looking put out.

When Nymeria bored of the attention she simply trotted off through the crowd of Dothraki as they stumbled to get out of her way. The sun began to sink and a shrill shriek from the cliffs advertised that the dragon had woken. "That's our cue to fuck off." Asha said, making her way back to the castle. She made sure her lads were alright given the days no doubt blending together for them then returned to her room where a cask of Arbor gold waited for her. To her surprise, the queen's pet eunuch soon ppeared in her doorway. "Lady Asha." he said in greeting. "What do you want?" she asked, eyebrows narrowing as she emptied a cup. "Just to satisfy a pique of curiosity. Funny how Arbor gold makes even the rusty tongues of Iron Islanders wag." Fuck, now what? "Well, Lord Varys, perhaps if you cared to get to the fucking point, I could help you." she said bluntly. "If I could do such a thing, I wouldn't need to intrude on you. I've heard mutters of events concerning a certain ship, Ironspar." Asha went from irritated to subdued. "Ah, you know it. Splendid." He came in and shut the door, sitting across from her. "I couldn't help but notice you haven't yet asked your brother how he came to Dragonstone." "Theon is none of your concern. He'll tell me what he will when he's ready, he doesn't need someone else giving him the oh, you're alive look." "Very sensible, he's been through more than most. Lord Tyrion's account seems to involve him throwing himself into the sea under a certain impetus one would expect a man in his condition not to be subject to. One I myself certainly am not." "The dwarf told you Theon jumped into a roiling sea after a woman? Then he's blind as well as short." Asha said grumpily. "Possibly not. Others who were thrown over by the tempest corroborate certain details that are impossible to ignore." he leaned forward. "Talk of walking fish and women with fishtails instead of legs." She raised an eyebrow. "Mermaids are the fantasies of old men drunk on seawater." "I would know for certain. Please confer with your brother when you can. Knowledge is my trade and if what a bit of what I've heard is true, then I am woefully underinformed." He stood and bowed to her. "Good evening." he left her in stunned silence.

Theon had the room next to her, so when he returned Asha knew at once. Ignoring the sailor next to him, she made for her brother. "The Spider came to me asking after you. Apparently something about-" "Mermaids and walking fish. Aye, all of it and more." he said with a shrug. Asha's jaw dropped, all lingering thoughts about the Mad King and direwolves both fleeing her mind. "Wh…what?" she asked, unsure if she'd heard right or if her brother had lost his senses. "Man-fishes. They're hell to listen to, croaking and gurgling. Huge eyes and needle teeth. Not the kind of folk you'd want saving you from a storm." he thought a moment. "Though the mermaids didn't give them a second look so probably woman-fishes too, I didn't ask. Fish don't have teats so I couldn't tell anyhow, but the mermaids more than made up for it." he grinned. "A man may appreciate a painting even if he cannot paint." "Theon, you're talking about things that would make the Damphair's beard go dry." she said, knees weak again. "Who's the Damphair?" Theon's companion asked. "My uncle, Aeron Greyjoy. A priest of the Drowned God." The man stared at Theon before the both of them burst into laughter. He pulled down his hood and Asha could see the puckered skin that had once been a canvas of burns. "Has this Damphair walked on the seabed? Watched a shark pass overhead? Under the waves everything can fly, you see. It's just a matter of how well." He walked off, still laughing. "You know where you're going?" Theon asked after him. "I've been in this castle before, air-breather." the man replied over his shoulder before he disappeared around a corner. Asha turned back to her brother. "Theon, on the way to Dorne I came upon the wreck of Ironspar, part of Euron's fleet. The hull was cracked open like an egg and the crew were dead to a man, boiled bright pink. What if your fishy friends are more dangerous than they let on?" "Of course they're more dangerous than they let on. But they were somewhere around Claw Isle, not the Sea of Dorne. A hundred man-fishes with steel hammers couldn't pop a longship's hull the way you say. Speaking of them, though, one of the fishwives told me that we're to huck the Seastone Chair back into the sea the second we get our hands on it." Asha's temper flared. "Bugger that. The Seastone Chair belongs to us-" "In return for all the shine that lines the bottom of the Narrow Sea." He grinned at her. "Come dawn, we'll go down to the beach, you and I, and do a bit of appraising." He left her in mute amazement in turn, thoughts of every fat merchant vessel and banking cog to go down between King's Landing and the Free Cities filling her mind. If Theon speaks true, she thought, a glittering ocean in its own right lies beneath the Narrow Sea.