She should not have let him kiss her.

That was the one thought that circled like a vulture about her mind for the rest of the day and into the next. She had spoken to him truly, for when she had returned to her senses, all she could see in her mind was Arthur dying in the dust and sand. How could she stand such a thing for the rest of her life?

And how could she still love the man who had ended Arthur's life? Was she truly so wicked? Yet everything he did and every word he said to her only made her hold Ned Stark dearer to her heart.

She should not have let him kiss her, but she could not find it in herself to regret it. It had been a terrible mistake to find him alone in the gardens to begin with. She should have known how weak was her conviction, but her skin had screamed for his touch, and for those few moments in his arms, she had been afloat with warmth, and light as a seabird.

But it mattered little. He was leaving the next day, and despite the cloudless sky this afternoon, Ashara could hear her heart slowly cracking. Up in the tower room of the Palestone Sword, she looked out over the sea and hoped the view would free her. Yet even up here, she could not breathe. What was there left to breathe for? What use was trying?

The wind whispered their dangerous, soothing words.

Absently, she ran her thumb along the edge of Arthur's shell, letting it dig into the skin. She had taken to wearing the thinning piece of string around her neck in the past days, because every touch was a sharp pinch of pain, and even that felt good against the numb grey.

Elia was dead. Arthur was dead. Her daughter was dead. Perhaps it was a sign of sorts from the gods. Perhaps she was not made to love others. It seemed a dangerous gift, her heart, and perhaps she would serve everybody best if she were carried away by the wind and sea.

A high pitched cooing sound came through the window behind her, and despite all Ashara felt a pleasant squeeze in her chest. Sure enough, when she peered out the north window, she saw Ned in the garden below, Jon's spring-coloured hat peeking over his shoulder.

She had thought she could never be warm again after the despair of yesterday, but the sight of the babe was like a candle in the darkening corners of her heart. She was in love with the child, she knew, for all that it had been mere days since she had first seen him clinging to Wylla's chest.

More than once she wondered how sweet it would have been had her own child lived, and though the very idea made her curl up in a ball amid her blankets, she could not help her own imagination.

But Jon would be leaving the next day, too, and Ashara knew they would take the last semblance of her lifeblood out to sea. Already she could feel the ghosts around her, and part of her wanted their cold hands and ashen touch—wanted to let herself wilt and die too—so she could keep their company.

The sound of the babe fussing floated up through the window now, and he sounded on the verge of crying. Wylla seemed nowhere to be found, but before Ashara could grow concerned, Ned had begun pacing the little garden courtyard, bouncing as he walked, the deep timbre of his voice melding with the babe's as they floated up to her window.

Ashara watched them, transfixed, and for a moment joy bubbled so pure in her throat that she wanted to laugh. Ned would not be like any father she knew. He would not observe from his high seat and act as some giant his sons could only view from afar—not for two babes without mothers. He would hold them and coo to them when they cried, and he would raise them to be good and kind and warm, just like him.

And if their daughter had lived?

Suddenly, she could not let him leave, not yet. Tearing her eyes away from the window, she flew down the stairs, nearly tripping in her haste. She ran through the little courtyard below the tower, her sandals pounding the white stone, and burst into the little lemon garden, her breath heavy in her ears.

Startled, Ned turned, and she could see the surprise in his eyes. What a mess she must look, but Ashara did not have the spare mind to care. In his arms, Jon too turned his eyes towards her, then proceeded to blow bubbles with his mouth squished together like a duckling.

Ashara heard herself laughing, though perhaps it was a sob. She turned back to Ned.

"I would speak to you, my lord. I would—I would show you something, before you leave. Where is Wylla?"

"Here, milady," came a voice on the other side of the fountain. Wylla's hurried from the far side of the garden, sewing basket on her arm.

"Wylla, would you take Jon for now? My lord?" Ned looked dazed by her sudden appearance, but after a few blinks turned to Wylla and passed Jon into her arms. In a wayward moment of affection, Ashara leaned down and kissed the babe's soft forehead, then his little hand.

She led Ned down to the docks, her head spinning, feeling as if she watched her body from above. Are you really going to do this? asked the small, cold centre of her rational thought. You'll break before him—you've already shown cracks—and if you do there won't be any going back.

But she was beyond caring. He had every right to know, and may what followed have mercy on them both.

O~O~O~O~O

The docks below the castle smelled cleaner than any harbour Ned had every visited—of sharp salt and balmy wind. Ashara had nearly run from the garden after giving him a look as fervent and hot as the sun, leading the way down here, giving him no chance to ask questions. She was like a woman completely changed from the day before, and Ned was not sure what to think.

Now she motioned him over to the smallest sailboats Ned had ever seen, tucked away on the far end of the dock, their single sails bound to what Willam Dustin had taught him was called the boom.

"Have you sailed a boat since we parted, Ned?" she asked, breathless, eyes flashing hard and bright, and he felt a little jolt down his back at her use of his name.

"Nothing so small, even with my bannermen up the River Wyl," he said faintly. "I simply held the lines handed to me. I'm afraid I still know nought else."

"It's no matter. Just hold things and duck your head when I tell you to."

Obediently, Ned eased himself into the hull of the sailboat, feeling it sway beneath his suddenly boneless legs. The water had never agreed with him, but he would certainly not say so to Ashara. Particularly not now. She all but hopped in after him and promptly set about adjusting lines and sail as if she still walked on solid ground.

In a few moments, she was undoing the dock lines, and the boat began drifting out into the river. She reached for the tiller, moving it lightly back and forth, then handed the smooth wood to Ned.

"Hold this in place, if you would." She adjusted the tangles of lines until she had hoisted the sail up, catching the wind. As the boat picked up speed down the river into the open mouth of the estuary, the sail swung off to one side. Ashara, sun-coloured robes rippling in the wind, slipped down to sit beside Ned, one of the lines hanging loosely from her hand.

Ned had known, naturally, that she could sail. Starfall was an island at the mouth of a river. Out of necessity if nothing else, it was logical that the Daynes used boats as often as they did horses. She had told him as much, but he had not expected how capable she was. He did not much like sitting still with his hand on a wooden stick while she did everything else, but he would not know how to make himself useful if his life depended on it.

His mind leapt to that afternoon at Harrenhal, when he had asked her to tell him of Starfall.

"In a way, it is less home than Sunspear," she had said with a wistful smile. "I was there perhaps a quarter of each year before Elia's engagement, and it was always too quiet without the princess and my other friends. Still, I am a Dayne. The mountains and water are in my bones."

She had told him of her earlier childhood, then—of how Ser Arthur would take her riding through the Red Mountains or sail them into the open sea with only a catboat.

"When Arthur took his vows, he rarely came home to visit, so I took to riding and sailing alone," Ashara told him, and she had looked so resignedly alone that Ned's heart had ached.

Now, in the boat, she turned to him, and her face was soft. "Do you remember when I told you of Starfall, back at Harrenhal, and you said you would love to come sailing with me?"

So she, too, had the memory at the fore of her mind. Ned nodded mutely.

"I am glad for this," she sighed, almost too softly.

The water glittered like scattered gems, and the wind was fresh against his skin and through his hair. Around them, various outcrops of rocks passed by, and in the distance came the sound of a gull cawing, followed by the crisp closing of wings. All was blue—new and clean and good.

"As am I, my lady." He hesitated, wanting obstinately to reach for her again even after her words the day before. "Where are we going?"

"I wish to show you something," she said, the softness slipping from her face. "I should have done so when you first arrived, but I'm afraid I'm rather a coward."

Ned frowned.

"I don't think such a thing could ever be said of you," he said, thinking of her brave face when he had told her of Ser Arthur's death.

"Careful, Ned. Don't make your pronouncements until you know everything."

They settled into a restless sort of silence, listening to the splashing of water against the hull, Ashara pulling lines or letting out the sail as the winds shifted. Soon they neared the largest of the rocky islands, and Ashara bid him duck his head as the sail swung over them and the boat turned into the worn stone dock that looked millennia old.

She threw the dock line. It caught the iron cleat, and Ned pulled them flush against the island as Ashara let down the sail and bound it to the boom.

"What is this place, my lady?" Ned asked as they stepped onto shore. A grove of gnarled old trees grew amid rocks blanketed in moss and clovers. A little ways from the docks was a block of the same pale stone Starfall was built from, milky white and glossy with age. It was at least ten feet across, and there seemed to be smudges of soot still clinging to its surface.

"My ancestors called this the Ait of Ling. Daynes have been cremated here for as long as anyone can remember, and every Dayne's name is carved onto a rock here, even the daughters who married into other houses."

Ned had not a clue what to say. He could not fathom why she had brought him here. To see Ser Arthur's grave? For what purpose?

She must have seen the question on his features, but she only gave a determined nod and bid him follow her as she picked along the stony path into the grove. The air was scented with sharp juniper sap and pine resin, solemn and grave, and the trees soon grew so thick that sunlight only poked through in narrow beams.

Along the way, Ashara bent to pick a little bunch of marigolds and buttercups, tying them together with a ribbon she pulled from her hair.

As they walked, Ned caught glimpses of names chiseled onto stone, followed by symbols he did not recognise: Davos, son of Ulerick and Jyanna Fowler, Sword of the Morning; Dyanna, daughter of Allyria and Garth Gardener, Princess Consort of Dorne; Clarisse, daughter of Adevar and Loreza Martell, Lady of Starfall.

The island may have been significantly smaller than Starfall itself, but it was still large enough that one could not immediately see the water on the other side. Slowly, it dawned on Ned just how many names were carved onto these rocks. It was said the Daynes had ruled the mouth of the Torrentine for ten millennia—thousands of names must lie here amid the pines and junipers.

Ashara stopped them before a small cluster of rocks. In front grew a half circle of cheerfully plump mushrooms. Ned followed, and for many moments did not comprehend what he was seeing as she laid her flowers before the flattest of the rocks.

Galina, daughter of Ashara and Eddard Stark.

"Ashara?" It hurt to speak. His mouth was dry as sand, and he felt submerged in icy water in the dead of winter, the cold biting into his gut.

"I named her for my mother. She was little more than five moons old when I miscarried."

"You…our…" Words would not come, stuck in his throat as bile bubbled beneath them and burned with each breath.

"I did not know," he finally said dumbly. "You never told me."

"I dared not write you," she said, eyes still fixed to the stone, voice flat. "Noone save Arthur and Elia knew I had lain with you at Harrenhal. At first I hoped our marriage would still stand, somehow, and then…"

"How did it happen?" Ned did not know how he could still stand on his own two feet and form speech with his tongue. His body was not his, and the world was edged with sickening black, as if he viewed it all from the end of a long tunnel.

"Nobody could tell me. I was fine—for months I felt in perfect health, not even sick in the mornings. Then, one night I felt a chill coming on, and suddenly, the next day I…All they told me was that—" her voice broke, "—was that sometimes this happens. There was nothing I could do. Even Old Yli says so. But that cannot be, can it? Elia nearly died birthing Aegon, but both her children were strong and healthy and alive, yet somehow, I—"

She had folded in on herself, one hand over her mouth, the other supporting her weight against the rocks. No longer caring for anything else, Ned lunged forward and drew her into him. For a moment she tensed, looking up at him with panicked eyes.

She was shaking like a dying leaf, and Ned clutched her tighter, hoping the weight of her against him would somehow ease the white hot agony that must surely be his heart ripping out of his chest.

"Oh, Ashara…"

Something seemed to break in her at her name, for she stared at him for a moment longer, and for the first time since his arrival at Starfall he saw her face crumple. Then she was crying hot tears into his doublet—great, soul-wracking sobs that poured forth all the grief of the past years and threatened to draw tears to his own eyes.

"Shh," he breathed. "Shh, it's alright. I have you."

His words only made her weep harder, and through her gasps all he heard were her apologies, over and over.

"No, my love, don't say that." His voice was rasping, and his throat closed painfully. "It cannot have been your fault."

"But…"

"Shh, trust me. You must not blame yourself." She turned her face up to him, and her skin was flushed and damp, her eyes red. Again his heart pulled as he thought about the pain she must have carried alone all these moons, and again at the child he had left her with, a child who would be no more.

For what seemed a black eternity, Ned held her as she wept, and it was not until she had stopped trembling and gasping for breath that he spoke again.

"If anything, you must blame me. I should not have been so thoughtless." The words cut like bits of a broken glass.

Slowly, she shook her head, and he felt her hands clinging to the fabric of his clothes.

"Sometimes moon tea does not act as it should. I have been taking it for years, and still…" She sank her teeth into her swollen lip. "But I was so happy, Ned, when I realised I was with child. So incandescently happy, and so certain it was a gift from the gods. Should I blame you for the miracle we created?"

He knew nought else to say, so he kissed her forehead and pressed her into his chest once more. There they stood, amid the silent pines and memories of ghosts, clinging to one another for all that had been lost.

O~O~O~O~O

"Did you mean your words when we parted at Harrenhal?"

Ned and Ashara had returned to the boat and left that little island. Without saying a word, she sailed them out into wider waters until Ned could see the southern edges of the Red Mountain cliffs that dropped into the sea. He had not protested. Here on this boat, on the sparking waters, with just the two of them and the wide sky above, Ned imagined the cruelty of the world could not reach them.

She had dropped the sail, and for what felt like hours, they lay in the boat listening to the sounds of the sea. Her head was tucked in the crook of his shoulder, and her hand had slipped beneath his doublet to cover the spot where his heart beat, its heat seeping through his shirt to his skin.

"Which words, Ash?" He thought he knew, but dared not ponder why she asked.

"That if you could find a way, you would marry me. Did you mean it?"

He heard his own intake of breath, and pulled her in closer, so she would not change her mind.

"Yes."

He felt her eyes on his face.

"And now?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but her hands clenched over his heart, and she spoke again.

"Before you answer, you must know I cannot give you what I could before. I'll have no influence at court, while you will no doubt be sought after by every lord in the realm for your friendship with the new king. And—and my brother no doubt told yours of our lands.

"My house is ancient, and we used to be kings, but now we keep to ourselves and do the best we can. We are not like the Yronwoods, and certainly not like the Tullys, with their fertile farmlands and endless groves. Our people produce enough grain and fish to feed themselves, and enough fruit to make life worthwhile. The only thing we have in any real abundance are peppers and grapes. You cannot support your whole North through a winter with peppers and wine.

"I…I would not fault you if you must think first of your people."

It took long moments for her words to settle, and when they did Ned tightened his hand on her arm.

"We are not so helpless in the North," he finally said, voice stiff. "And my son will be heir to Winterfell. Hoster Tully would not let his grandson inherit a crumbling land."

He shifted their weight so he could look her right in the eye, so she could see the truth of every word.

"I swore to you, and I meant every word. I want you for you, Ashara. Not for influence. Not for resources. It was true at Harrenhal, and it is truer now."

It was all his duty would let him say aloud. A hidden, selfish corner of his heart knew that he could not give her up again, no matter the consequences and no matter what she could bring the North. Not now that he had tasted what it was to lose her.

But he refused to form the words. If they stayed hidden, perhaps he could pretend that he still held honour and duty above the heart she held in her hands.

"If you can…if you can bear the things I've done—"

"I forgive you," she said, her hand lifting to trace his cheek. "For all that it was never your fault, I choose to forgive you. It will not be perfect, and I do not doubt there will be moments when—when I still imagine…but I want to live, Ned. I want to love you and find joy with you, and I want to be a mother to your son and nephew. And if…if the gods are kind, I want to carry your children and hear their laughter ring in your beloved Winterfell."

Her eyes sparkled, almost blue from the sea and sky, and her face was aglow with divine light.

"Then marry me, Ashara. Marry me as it was always meant to be."

O~O~O~O~O

He rose over her, letting himself sink into her deep, still eyes, and when he kissed her it was sweeter than he had ever tasted. They moved slowly, or they tried, both wanting to savour every touch of skin on skin. But it had been so very long, and they had kept themselves so tightly rigid and frozen. The fire roared to life in his belly, hotter than the sun above them, and soon they were fumbling with ties and buttons, the boat rocking beneath them.

Her mouth was on his neck and his chest, and everywhere she kissed and sucked his skin pure pleasure bloomed to life. His hand found her breast, her nipple already hard like a pearl in his palm, and he made a rough sound that lifted a whimper from her throat.

"I've dreamed of your hands on me," she breathed in his ear. "And your mouth. Would you...oh…" He had complied, licking down her neck and scraping her nipple with his teeth.

The deep scent of her swirled around him, rich and sweet. He was drunk on it, and on the impossible softness of her skin on her breast and down her stomach. She groaned his name. Her voice was fuller now, and every sound she made stoked the fire even hotter. All the blood was rushing between his legs, his trousers growing painfully tight.

She pulled him up to face her, and he was again so lost in her exquisite eyes that he nearly jumped when he felt her hand undoing his trousers and brushing against him through the fabric.

"Gods, Ned, I need you inside me," she whispered, and then her hand was on him, guiding him into her, and they both groaned at the contact. For a moment he thought he would spend right then. When they had lain together at Harrenhal, he had been secretly grateful he had given in that single time at six and ten, and gone to the brothel with Robert.

He had not so embarrassed himself with Ashara at Harrenhal—even as the pleasure of her around him had been a thousandfold what he had felt with the girl in the vale—and he certainly would not now.

Ned braced himself against the smooth wood of the boat, calming his breath and studying her face. She bit her lip. Her face was flushed, and she squirmed with impatience. When he had finally gathered his wits, he moved within her, once, twice—and she groaned again and rose to meet him, her body suddenly wild against his.

They clutched each other as their lips met and their bodies rocked in desperation, and Ned wanted to press her close enough that she would meld into him, so they would be one being tangled together always.

Her moans were so sweet in his ear, and soon they grew to a peak before she went completely silent, taut and trembling in his hands, her body pulling at his like waves. His own cry was rough and almost anguished as he spilled into her, but nothing had felt so right in a long, long time.

They rode out the storm together, and he stayed in her for many moments afterwards, pressing kisses onto her skin as her breath feathered over his neck.

When she had recovered, she locked her eyes into his, and in one motion rolled them over so she lay atop him. Her fingers drew a line over his chest, and Ned shivered.

"Yes, Ned Stark. Yes, I will marry you."

A/N: Well. That was my first actual smut scene, like ever, so be kind guys.

Now, if you can believe it, this prologue is not actually over. There are political shenanigans still to come.

Again, if you'd like to beta for me, please let me know. I will shower you with love.