"Did you manage to go back home when they buried your brother?"

In the little chamber that now served as her solar, Ashara reclined in one corner of the silk-strewn couch. Dyanna Dalt leaned against her, resting her head half on her lap, and Ashara combed her fingers absently through her friend's hair as they spoke. They'd worked through an entire flagon of wine already, and Ashara was tranquil and languid as an afternoon breeze wound about the chamber and rippled her silk dress against her skin.

"No," said Dy, heaving a soft sigh and smiling a sad smile up at her. "The venom took hold too quickly. There was never hope of saving him. The fever set in right away, and he never awoke from the hallucinations. He was gone and buried within a sennight."

Six years ago, Ser Paten Dalt had died from the sting of a dream scorpion while riding through the desert with his men, and now his eldest son Deziel, barely older than Robb, ruled as Knight of Lemonwood. Paten had always walked with a slight limp after his injury in the King's Landing riots the day he had killed Ser Armory Lorch, but he had nonetheless been one of Dorne's finest warriors, a reputation only exceeded by that of his honour.

His death by scorpion had been deemed by some to be a most unfitting end, but death was death. No matter what, it had come too early for Paten Dalt.

"Your poor nephew," Ashara sighed, for he had been but twelve when his father had passed. "At least Paten did not suffer in his dying."

"No, I daresay he did not suffer," said Dy. "My goodsister told me he kept mumbling to 'his love' in his fever dreams. I naturally did not write back that he did not mean her."

"Oh…" So he saw Elia in his poisoned sleep. That was, perhaps, not a horrible way of dying.

Another sad smile laced Dyanna's thin face.

"I wonder if Elia would be glad she held onto his heart until he could die to join her."

Ashara felt herself frown and her throat suddenly squeeze.

"I do not think Elia would be happy he has died at all," she managed, "young as he was."

"Hmm. You are right. Elia would have wanted him to forget her, perhaps nurture another springtime bloom in his heart, but we Dalts…" She looked up to meet Ashara's eye. "We're stubborn as mules."

Oh, that she knew. Dy had always been retiring and frail, but underneath her timid surface, there had always been an iron will.

"Do you know if she loved him?" Ashara asked now. Over the years, it had become clear that, while she'd had no secrets from Elia, her friend had kept secrets from everyone. Ashara did not resent it. Elia had always been a whole being unto herself and never needed to lean on another. Not like her.

Dyanna shut her eyes, and for a moment Ashara thought she looked as if in pain. Yet, before she could question her, the frown had dissipated.

"I'd like to think she knew, either way. And that his devotion made her happy, somehow. That's all that would have mattered to Paten. Not if she returned his love."

"Oh, Dy, I am so sorry." And she did not know if her heart ached for Dy's loss of her brother or for their shared love of Elia Martell.

They poured more wine and drained their goblets, both agreeing wordlessly to dissipate the veil of sorrow that had begun to settle about the brightly-lit chamber. Dyanna tucked herself into Ashara's lap once more.

"Would you braid my hair?" she asked, lifting a brow in self-mockery. "You always were the best at it, and it will be rather a fun diversion to have Aron fuss over my hair instead of his own."

Ashara laughed and complied, undoing the threads that bound her hair in place. Dyanna's hair had always been the envy of all their little circle of friends, for it was thick and silky and shone like the rich obsidian on Dragonstone. She set about braiding it anew as Dy stretched against the cushions and absently twisted a bit of Ashara skirt around her hand.

"Are you happy with him?" she asked after a long moment. It was clear as glass that Dyanna was not in love with Aron Santagar, but she had seemed content enough these weeks that Ashara had been in King's Landing.

"Aron?"

She laughed again.

"Well, yes, but is there another you have not told me about?"

Dy grinned up at her.

"No, there isn't some other man I am in love with. Aron and I are…friends, and we tend each other's needs well enough. Lovers are rather a tricky business in the city. You know how it is. And he's never shamed me for being unable to bear children, so yes, I am happy, rather."

It had been a good match, an alliance between the Dalts and the Santagars, but Ashara had always found it strange that Dyanna would want to return to King's Landing after the nightmares that once haunted her in the Red Keep.

"You do not mind being back here?"

Dy shrugged.

"'Tis not as if Her Sneering Grace demands my company each day. I don't have to walk the halls where the Mad King once roamed. And besides…as frightful as they could be, that year in this city and those on Dragonstone…I think they were some of the most radiant times in my life."

Some time later, a knock came at the door.

"Milady?" It was Corynne.

"What is it?" Ashara called.

"Lady Lynesse Hightower has sent over a gift and a note. Would you like to write a reply? Her maid is out here."

Ashara and Dyanna exchanged a look, and Dy raised a rather suggestive eyebrow up at her. Ashara sighed.

"Send her in then."

The girl had a basket filled with jars of Yronwood apricot preserve, and Ashara had to grudgingly admit that it had been a thoughtful gesture. Still, she hoped Lynesse Hightower had understood her refusal at Winterfell to be final.

After Ashara had written a quick note of thanks and sent the maid on her way, she turned, exasperated, to a grinning Dyanna.

"Oh, very funny," she said, returning a sideways look. She had told Dyanna of Lynesse Hightower's advances at Winterfell, not having the wisdom to leave out that she did not detect the woman's interest until she had all but spoken her desire aloud, and Dyanna had teased her mercilessly about the cold of the North dulling her senses.

"I spoke not at all," Dy said now, eyes wide. "But why has she sent you apricot preserve of all things?"

"They served it at the queen's solar the other morning. I told the ladies that Ned and the twins would be vexed they could not partake with us, and Lady Lynesse seems…to have been most attentive to my words."

Dyanna laughed her soft, floating laugh.

"But if she is still trying to play to your good graces, should she not have noticed you refused to touch it?"

Ah, it had truly been too long since she had seen her friends. Dyanna did not know that Ashara no longer hated the very smell of the spread.

Arya was fifteen now. Had it truly been more than fifteen years since she had set eyes on Dyanna Dalt? And her other friends—Larra and Moriah and Jynessa, each still in Dorne while she had sailed so far from them all. Sometimes, it felt as if her youth—their youth, spent amid the rainbow silks and crystal-cool fountains—had been lived by another woman entirely.

Before she could correct Dyanna however, another knock sounded on the door, faster and louder than before.

"Lady Stark?" This time it was Jaks, one of their household guards. Urgency laced his voice.

Ashara exchanged a frown with Dy, then called to ask his purpose

"Milord sent me, milady. He says there is news and requests your presence at once."

000

"Disappeared? How does a grown man simply disappear?"

Ashara and Ned stood in the Hand's solar as the two guards Ned had sent to summon Ser Hugh of the Vale recounted how they had gone to his boardinghouse only to be informed that he vanished into thin air just the day before. Ashara could not believe her ears. Yet another piece of this puzzle missing.

"I d'know, milady," said Desmond as he rubbed the back of his neck. "The innkeep says he went out at midday and never came back for the evening meal. Says he'd left all his things in his room but didn't pay in advance.?\"

"And he didn't say where he was going when he left?" Ned asked.

"Mayhaps he did, milord. The innkeep never paid no mind. Too many guests stayin' to keep track."

"And you've searched in the area?" asked Ashara. "Brothels and other taverns? Fighting dens? Gambling shops? Did he not have friends whose company he kept?"

"No company we could find in the boardinghouse, milady. And we asked 'round, but the only one who'd seen him yesterday was a shopkeep who sold him a lady's trinket."

Ashara exchanged a look with Ned. Littlefinger had told them that this Ser Hugh had no one in King's Landing and only an old mother in the Vale. Perhaps it had been a gift for her. Or perhaps it had been a gift for a sweetheart or a whore. Regardless, it was clear that he had not intended to disappear that day.

Ned sighed. "Keep looking then," he told the two guards. As he shut the door, he turned back to Ashara..

"So then. Now what?"

Back at Winterfell and along the King's Road, when they had lain in bed and whispered their plans for finding Jon Arryn's murderer, Ashara had imagined the feat to be simple enough. She was most convinced that he had been poisoned, and as Lady Arryn was so certain it was the Lannisters, her and Ned's task would naturally be to find proof and motive of Lannister guilt.

And yet their ill luck began the moment they set foot in the city, for they soon learned that Lysa Arryn had packed up her entire household—many of whom had been taken on in King's Landing—back to the Vale by the time they arrived. Ned had sent her a raven, but it had garnered no reply.

Ashara did not know why Lady Arryn had so forcefully tasked Ser Brynden with carrying her message of Lannister murder to Ned if she did not intend to help continue their investigations.

Yet continue they must, and so she and Ned had gone to Pycelle to inquire about Lord Arryn's last days. That visit had elicited more questions and frustration than it had been worth. Knowing what she did about the Tears of Lys, everything about Pycelle's words and demeanour had screamed his guilt.

The Grand Maester had hemmed and hawed when Ned had asked about poison. Add to this his obvious prevention of any chance Jon Arryn had of recovery by sending his maester away—not to mention his well-known toadying to Tywin Lannister—and it was clear that, had the Lannisters wished Jon Arryn dead, Pycelle was the clear choice for assassin.

And that was the reason Ashara had concluded that Pycelle could not have administered the poison—not directly. They could not discount that Tywin Lannister had simply become careless with age, but Ashara had had the distinct impression that, should they investigate further in Pycelle, all that would emerge was smoke and hearsay. The Lannisters would surely not leave such an obvious loose end to his own devices, free to roam about the castle and provide damning information to the Hand.

Pycelle had promised to deliver them the book that Jon Arryn had been reading when he died. Then, some days later, he had sent an apprentice to apologise, for the tome had disappeared into thin air. Why mention such a book if he'd had no intention of delivering it to Ned?

No, Pycelle did not truly know what the Lannisters had planned if it really were the Lannisters who'd poisoned Lord Arryn. There was another force behind Pycelle's bumbling, blatant appearance of guilt, and it appeared that she and Ned were still at the same place whence they'd started this inquiry.

Ashara had been pacing Ned's solar, detailing for him her reasoning about Pycelle, when they had been interrupted by the announcement that Petyr Baelish was asking for an audience.

It had been a shock, this appearance. Ashara did not think that a man who had once fought a childish duel for Catelyn Tully's hand would be inclined to provide any assistance to the man his beloved had eventually married. And, if she was being honest, a petty man might even blame Ned for her death, (though she had kept that particular thought to herself.) Given Littlefinger's comments during that first council meeting, Ashara was willing to wager that he was, indeed, a petty man.

"Why, Lord Stark," he'd said when Ned had asked his business. "I am here to offer my humble assistance in your investigations. They say in the south that you Starks are all made of ice. Evidence has shown that you melt when you ride south of the Neck."

Ashara had been tempted to strike him, and Ned had looked as if he would call Tomard back in and throw the man bodily from the Tower of the Hand. What was he playing at, coming out of the blue to prod at Ned's scars from the war?

"Careful, Lord Baelish," Ashara had ground out, feeling her cheeks flush with indignant anger.

"Even down south, I believe my goodbrother once managed to present you with a permanent token of his esteem."

Something jagged had flashed in his eyes, but his smirk was light and sharp, and Ashara realised too late that he could say worse things than what had already left his mouth.

"Ah, Lady Stark. I see Lord Brandon told you all about his exploits. I'm not surprised. 'Tis said you knew him well at Harrenhal."

In a blink Ned had Littlefinger pushed into the wall, his dagger at the man's throat.

"I have little patience for these word games and even less for your insults, Baelish."

It took her a moment to gather her wits, fried as they were by the anger licking at her throat.

"Ned."

It would not do to murder the master of coin in the Hand's solar, no matter how much Ashara wished to cut his tongue out with her own blades tucked in her sleeve.

Ned relaxed slightly and lowered his blade, though he left it unsheathed.

"Let me ask you again, Baelish. What do you want?"

The little man coughed and glared.

"As I said, I had intended to offer you my assistance, but I see now that you do not require it."

Ned's eyes had narrowed, and something flickered in Ashara's mind. Before Ned could answer, she spoke.

"Really, Lord Baelish? You see, we were under the impression that you had come to offer insults. 'Tis all you have given thus far."

It would do no harm to hear what the man had to say. If he truly wished to provide help from the goodness of his heart, he would not have begun with his insults. No, this man wanted something, and this assistance was his means to an end. It did not matter, then, that Ned might have offended him with his blade.

Sure enough, the smirk was back on Littlefinger's face.

"Insults, observations. The line is a fine one, Lady Stark, but I did truly wish to offer my assistance."

"Why should you want to help at all?" Ned had asked, still glowering. Littlefinger had given them both long glances, and Ashara could almost hear him weighing his words as a wily merchant weighed his coins.

"Truth be told…my conscience dictates that I try to find out the truth behind Jon Arryn's death. All that I am, I owe to Jon Arryn, ever since I was a boy. Perhaps you know this. Then, of course, there is Lady Arryn, who is like…who is like mine own sister, as Lady Catelyn was. She believes it was murder. Poison. I am obliged to find out the truth."

Littlefinger had spoken his piece then, laying before them those he had located who were formerly of Lord Arryn's household. When he had left, Ashara and Ned had determined that, though his motives seemed suspect and his hostility evident, he could prove to be of use. Thus far, they had only trusted Dyanna and Aron with the information that Lord Arryn had likely been poisoned, but they'd had little interaction with the Hand, and could tell Ashara nothing.

Littlefinger's self-declared motivations seemed reasonable enough, and he seemed genuinely forthright with all that he knew. In the end, they decided it could not hurt to question those servants he had found.

And so they had, though there was very little information that had proven helpful in the slightest. In the end, aside from a strange discrepancy in whether Lord Arryn had intended to foster Robert Arryn at Casterly Rock or Dragonstone, the only leads they found were Lord Arryn's sudden closeness with Stannis Baratheon and their strange and shocking rides through the city.

They had been hoping that Ser Hugh, who had once been Lord Arryn's squire, would provide more information, but as it turned out, the man had let his recent knighthood inflate his head. He would not come back to the Red Keep with Jory—not without an official decree from the Hand, he had retorted—and so Ned had hastily applied his seal to parchment and written a summons.

Now it seemed, in just a day's time, that Ser Hugh had disappeared into thin air along with the tome Pycelle had promised Ned.

"What now?" Ned asked again, dropping into a chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. Sweat was beading on his forehead, and Ashara blotted it with her handkerchief before sinking into the chair beside him. Her own head was starting to ache even as a thrill of foreboding crept down her back.

"Grown men do not disappear like this," she said, chewing at her lip. "First Pycelle's book, then Ser Hugh…whoever it is behind this murder has been trying to derail us before we can even start, it seems."

"It appears to me more and more that it could have been none but the Lannisters," Ned said, his voice low. Ashara had not wished to worry him unnecessarily with warnings of the walls themselves seeming to have ears, but Ned was no fool. Even surrounded only by their own household, all brought from Winterfell, it was best to be careful.

"I agree," she sighed, though they still had no real motive save Lysa Arryn's tenuous accusation. "They certainly have the men and power to take a man off the streets in broad daylight and silence any witnesses."

"Gods, do you think our looking into him will get this boy killed?"

Ashara pursed her lips.

"I won't pretend not to think Ser Hugh in danger, but besides sending men to keep looking, I don't know what else there is to do."

The grooves were deep between Ned's brows, and Ashara reached out to smooth them with her thumb.

"Enough of this for today. You should go to the armourer on the morrow, but think of something else for today. Surely there is always more business in governing the realm."

Ned gave a humourless laugh.

"Others take Robert. This bloody tourney is going to cost the realm thousands of gold dragons that it does not have, and he insists on holding it in my name."

"Ned…"

He heaved a burdened sigh.

"I know, I know, but even if those words got back to him, it's no worse than what I said to his face when we argued over this. Gods be good, I'd forgotten what a stubborn ox he could be. All reason escapes him when he digs in his heels."

"At the very least you managed to lower the winnings," Ashara mused, thinking that perhaps this was a sign Robert might yet make more than a farce of his reign with Ned around.

She could only hope. She'd had a cursory look at some of the accounts Ned had procured from Littlefinger, and though she could not understand most of it without her head pounding, she could see enough to know that, should the Lannisters and the Iron Bank call in their debts, it would be a matter settled with not just gold, but blood too.

Yet, she and Ned both agreed that their most pressing matter was to find this snake that slept in Robert's bed. If it truly was the Lannisters, then proof must be found, though Ashara could not help the unwelcome inkling unfurling in her stomach that too much evidence pointed all in one direction.

She felt her head spin. Her mind liked to weave and unravel words and schemes, but never before had she felt the foreboding of a web she could not see closing in on herself. It was as if she and Ned stood in the only beam of light, and all around them was black shadow. It made her uneasy.

She rose then, smoothing her skirts. Ned looked up in question, and she gave him a half-smile.

"Well, someone has to determine the brothels Lord Arryn and Stannis were visiting. It would hardly look right for honourable Ned Stark to be frequenting brothels with his lady wife present in the city."

Ned's jaw went slack.

"So you are going instead? And that's supposed to look better, is it?"

Ashara shrugged.

"I am Dornish. People already say worse things." Littlefinger's jibe from days ago still rankled them both, though neither had spoken of it.

"And besides, back when Elia first married Rhaegar, we would visit brothels and orphanages and provide the women and babes with extra coin. I will simply tell any nosy enough to ask that this is what I am doing now."

Ned did not look pleased, but then, he had never wished to know too much about how Ashara had been receiving information on King's Landing these many years past. She gave him a patient smile.

"You needn't worry. I am not going to go knocking on every whorehouse like some drunken sailor. I have a good friend who is the proprietor of her own establishment. She has provided me with much information these years past, and I am certain—"

For the third time that day Ashara was interrupted by a pounding on the door.

"Milord, milady, there is urgent news! A raven from Winterfell!"

At once they were both on their feet, Ned yanking the door open as Jaks once again tumbled in. Something was wrong—it had to be. Robb had just written not a sennight past with troubling news about the Sheepshead poachers, and with all that had been happening in the capital, they had yet to determine the best course of action to bring the Boltons and Hornwoods to task.

Now, for Robb to write again…could there be a worsening development with the trouble?

Ned was already breaking the seal as he strode to the window. He unfurled the parchment, and Ashara approached to read over his shoulder. Her eyes skimmed to the first paragraph and her breath caught in her throat.

Sam has returned from Horn Hill, but he has somehow gotten it in his head that he is joining the Night's Watch. The Night's Watch, Father! We all fear he is going mad. Jon, Theon and I spent all of the previous evening convincing him to reconsider, but he insists he has made up his mind, and it is not as if we can lock him in his chambers.

He has left Winterfell with the recruiting party from the Reach this morning. Jon and Theon have travelled with him. It is our hope that they are able to talk sense into him on the ride up to the Wall.

None of us have any inkling what to do. Please, Father, find a way to stop him. Can you write to the Lord Commander? Can you write to Sam's father? He—I fear—It is only that— We all know how he will fare if he were to join the Night's Watch. I don't understand what has gotten into him. Father, please. You must do something, and quick. Are we truly to watch Sam throw his life into the wind?

A/N:

If you're curious about the Elia/Paten Dalt relationship, please see the one-shot titled "To Pluck the Moon from the Sky" in my profile :)

Sigh. Another slower chapter. Sorry guys, but things have to be explained and recounted so we're all aware what Ned and Ash know and what they're thinking about all this. Please note the slight changes from canon :)

Also, if anyone tells me that Ned and Ash should already be suspicious of Littlefinger poisoning Jon Arryn…I will be very disappointed in you and ignore you completely. They're not us the reader, okay? What motivation could either of them possibly think of for LF wanting Jon Arryn dead?

If you've gone to an all-girls highschool, I think you'll recognise some of Ashara and Dyanna's behaviour. Ah, nostalgia.