For those reading on another platform, I highlyrecommend reading this chapter on SpaceBattles, SufficientVelocity, or Questionable Questing. Published under the name "PrognosticHannya"

A week.

My father lay unconscious, legs bent backwards, for a week.

All of our family at the tourney—me, Erryn, Ash, and Uncle Bonifer—kept watch over him, but we all had duties, and so weren't there when he first woke up.

The Maester came as soon as he'd opened his eyes, but the walk to the healer's tent might as well have been the longest in my life.

"D-Durran?"

"Father!"

He coughs. "W-What happened? I remember, there was… I was d-drinking and then…"

"I'll tell you what happened" Ashara growls, "That Lan-"

I shoot her a glare, and she bristles, but falls back next to Erryn.

"You were attacked" I say, gently taking hold of his hand "by a group of footpads."

"Gods" he says, moaning and flopping his head back, "the boys will never let me hear the end of it. Bran the Bastard, taken out by some common thugs."

I can't help but chuckle at that. "If it helps, one of them was the son of Lord Lannett. So a group of thugs an an heir."

I cringe right after I say the words, and Ash shoots me an incredulous look.

Father chuckles, a frail, wheezing thing. "Don't-" he coughs "don't look at y-your brother like that, young lady. Do you r-really think I can't tell something else h-happened? You three are good, but not t-that good."

Ash stands back, abashed, and I have to hold back a laugh at how easily Father can read us, despite my flush of embarrassment.

"So" he says, propping himself up a bit, "the… Lan somethings? L-Lannetts, Lanneys, Lantells? Who the h-hell'd I piss off this time? I don't think I've had any W-Westermen or women recently…"

"Well…"

Ash looks to me, and I hold her back with a shake of my head, much to her chagrin. This is no place for her rashness.

"A few days ago, Cersei Lannister s-"

I have to stop as he descends into a choking and coughing fit.

"I-I'm sorry, Lannister?"

I nod.

He falls back with a sigh. "…Seven fucking above, how'd that happen?"

I sigh. "It was when Erryn and I were signing up for the tourneys. I bumped into her in line, and splattered a few drops of mud on her dress."

He raises an eyebrow in a way that's intimately familiar.

"Yes, that really is what started it. A few drops of mud."

I continue. "She started yelling at me, screaming and berating and insulting me. Telling me that her dress cost more than my whole lordship, and that she'd sell me to a Lyseni pillow house to make up for it, or something like that."

"And you responded?" he says, face grim.

I shake my head. "No, but… I honestly can't say I wouldn't have. But I was honestly just too shocked to respond for a bit, I mean… the daughter of the Tywin Lannister, screeching like some evil goodmother out of a maiden's tale?

"He didn't respond" Ash says, eyes hard, "I did."

"Ah" father says with a coughing sigh "yes I… I s-see the problem now. What d-did you say to her."

I jump in to defend my sister. "Honestly, nothing too awful. A few subtle insinuations, 'mistaking' her for her Aunt Genna… nothing too scandalous. Positively restrained, actually, given the types of threats the lioness was hurling at me."

I nod at Ash's look of thanks. Despite her later… rash actions, she handled her first confrontation with Cersei Lannister remarkably well.

He arches his eyebrow once more. "I have a hard time believing that that would warrant some… some attack on my person."

I grimace. "The thing is…"

Ash continues, squeezing Erryn's hand in silent support. "Prince Rhaegar was there."

He coughs again, dissolving into another fit.

Ash gives a grim smile. "Yes, he was in disguise trying to sign up for the Bard's tourney. If it's any consolation, the two of us got along rather well, I think he rather likes me."

"And he saw this, and interfered?"

"I called him in" Ash said, "I admit, it was in a way that was a bit taunting, giving him a compliment for his wife right after insinuating something negative about Lady Cersei, but still. I'd hoped he'd defuse the situation."

I turn to look at her in shock, and she snorts. "What? I do have some sense, brother. I was just trying to get one last jab in. And it worked, didn't it?"

Reluctantly, I nod. The Prince did break the two of them up…

Father sighs, his head flopping back to his pillow. "So… she decided to get revenge? Presumably by hiring those thugs through the Lannett heir?"

I nod. "Ash had beaten the Ser Tion in the melee-"

Father laughs. "That's my girl!"

"-and he apparently nursed something of a grudge. With some… encouragement he was eager to tell us all about how his liege lord's daughter seduced and paid him to go after one of us, whichever was the most vulnerable."

I'm about to explain more, but I'm cut off by the arrival of my honorary Great-Uncle.

"Brandyn!"

He coughs. "U-Uncle. I'd say it's good to see you, but I don't think there's much good of anything right now. You win?"

He sighs. "Brandyn, this is no time for jesting. You've been seriously attacked!"

He arches an eyebrow in the same way Ash and I both do, a way I know he learned from Mother.

My great-uncle rolls his eyes. "No, I didn't win. I was defeated just today in the fourth round by Ser Barristan".

Father smiles.

"G-Good f-" he breaks off into coughs. G-Good for you, the Bold K-Knight's a t-tough damn opponent."

"Gods" my the purple-clad knight says, dropping into a chair next to the three of us beside father's bed, "this is like a nightmare. Do you know what happened?"

He gestures to us with a fond smile. "I think these three runts here know, but they said they would only give the full story i- when you woke up."

Father coughs. "If I woke? Gods, it really must be bad. And yes, they explained i-it to me."

Uncle Bonifer frowns. "And?"

"W-Well" Father says, trying to prop himself up to see the brother of his father's wife, "y-you know how back w-when I was a kid, when S-Steve and I would spar?"

The knight smiles. "Yes, I do remember the two of you swinging those wooden sticks at each other, nephew. Didn't you almost take out each others' eyes?"

My father laughs, which quickly transitions into a hacking cough.

"W-Well" he says, "it was a lot l-like what happened with that Bolling Squire."

My uncle grimaces. "Ah, that explains it. No one likes an arrogant scion, let alone one as self-righteous and petty as that little thing."

My father chuckles, and we fall into a comfortable silence.

Eventually though, my father sighs, and looks down to the sheet covering his lower half, before turning to the Maester sitting in the corner.

"Whelp, best get it over with. How bad is it, Maester?"

I look at him quizzically.

"What?" he says with an arched brow, "there's a d-damn sheet in between my head and my legs, and shins have been b-burning like they're on fire ever since I woke up."

"Well" the Maester says, moving over to adjust the hanging, "it's not as bad as it could be. If these two had gotten you here any more slowly, we might have had to amputate entirely."

Father lets out a sigh of relief at that.

"But…" he says, grimacing, "unfortunately, we weren't able to completely reconstruct the shin when setting it."

Father's face, normally so full of joy and life, goes flat. "Just tell me p-plainly."

The Maester pulls back the sheet, and the three of us gasp.

It's not utterly pulverized, not like I'd thought, but it's noticeably broken and healed unevenly, making his left leg a few inches shorter than the right.

Father shudders, seemingly transfixed by the sight of his own ruined legs. "Will… will I…"

"Yes" the Maester says, "you'll be able to walk, but not well. You'll most likely be relying on a cane for the rest of your life, and you shouldn't go faster than a hobble for your own safety."

He grits his teeth. "I…"

My eyes dart to Ash and Erryn, but they look just as lost as I am.

I can see his hands turning white as the grip into the wood of the cot.

"Father…" Erryn says.

All at once, the tension seems to leave his body, and he flops back down onto the straw mattress from where he's been holding his torso up. "Just… j-just… fuck. My w-whole life…"

Erryn, ever the empath, steps up and wraps him in a hug. "No. your life is not just fighting, not anymore. that may be how you won your keep, but it's not how you've kept it. Your life is us now, your family. Me and Ash and Durran and Bella, mother and little Garin."

"Gods" he sobs, not once having looked away from his legs. "W-What's Jyn going to think of this? Who in t-the hells wants a cripple for a husband?"

"No" Erryn says forcefully, grabbing Father's head and yanking his gaze off his injuries. "She loves you, father. You know mother; you could have been the Warrior himself, and it wouldn't matter one bit to her."

"He's right, Bran" Great-Uncle Bonifer says, laying a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "You're not defined by your hammer, for all it's on your coat of arms. You are not just a fighter, but a father, a husband, a lord, a ruling knight… and above all those things, an upright and noble man. Losing one does not diminish the others."

My father closes his eyes, seemingly deaf to his Uncle's words.

"Bran." he says sternly, "do you think Jynessa would want you to brood like this? What did Galladon and I teach you? If life knocks your down…"

That seems to get through to him, despite his normal reluctance to talk about his departed father. He lets out something between a chuckle and a sob. "…get back up, and punch life right in its smug face. "

Ash raises an eyebrow. "Oh? I didn't see you getting up much, Uncle, when Ser Barristan knocked you flat on your ass like an unruly squire."

We all break down into laughter at that, the stress of the day overcoming us.

Eventually though, the brief respite dies down, and my father is still left brooding, looking at his shattered body. "I… I suppose all of you have a p-point. This is just one more obstacle to overcome."

I lay a hand on his shoulder in support, and see Ashara lean in to wrap him in a hug.

He sighs. "I just… Thank you, a-all of you. Could y-you just give me some t-time to come to terms with this?"

"Of course" Erryn assures him, quickly echoed by us at his prompting.

"So…" he says, looking between the three of us, "let's move onto s-something… well, something happier, I s-suppose. Tell me Uncle, how d-did my kids do in the tourney!"

We all laugh at that, wrapping him in warm hugs, and begin to regale him with our tales of strength and heroism.

And though the minutes pass, full of laughs and congratulations, I still worry. There's a seed of loss behind his eyes, a seed of anguish, one I can only hope does not flower into a poisonous fruit.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I don't have much time to contemplate my father's condition, as Ash's next fight is scheduled for an hour later.

We leave father, promising to give him every detail when we come back, and split off when we reach the field.

I try to immerse myself in the atmosphere, try to take my mind off my father's empty expression when he first beheld his mangled legs, to only partial success.

It's been eight days since her… ill-advised fight with the Lannister heir, and four since she beat young Marq Coldwater in a farce that could barely be called a match. So needless to say, I'm eager to see her in a normal fight, for once.

Unluckily, it doesn't look like I'm going to get my wish.

"Announcing… Lord Euron Greyjoy, the Son of the Sea Wind, second in line to the Seastone Throne, son of Lord Paramount Quellon Greyjoy, who is Lord Reaper of Pyke, Lord of Great Wyk, Old Wyk, Harlaw, Saltcliffe, Blacktyde, and Orkmont, King of Salt and Rock, and Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands! "

"And his opponent, Lady Ashara Blackmoth, daughter of Ser Brandyn Blackmoth, Knight of Lovecraft Village!"

I have to suppress a laugh at the disparity in titles, until it abruptly dies upon seeing my sister's opponent.

The man now unhurriedly strolling to meet my sister isn't anything impressive at first glance, looking like just another one of the hundreds of sell-swords come to test their luck at the Tourney. He's not even wearing proper armor, clad in the studded leather brigadine common to sell-sails and pirates across the world, no Greyjoy kraken in sight.

But despite all this, despite his supreme averageness, there is something deeply, deeply wrong with Euron Greyjoy. I can feel it through the force, and judging by the way they fall silent, some hidden subconscious corner of the crowd's hind-brains can as well.

I might not know many of the more esoteric skills Ash or Erryn have cultivated, but I've made sure to become quite skilled with aura-reading to give me an advantage when playing politics.

His aura is radiant, shining brighter than any I've seen outside Ashara, but twisted. No, not twisted, because "twisted" implies that the thing was at one point straight.

Euron Greyjoy is just… built wrong.

It's like someone reached into his mother's womb with a scraper hollowing out all the parts of a man that makes him a man. Not just the joy and love, but even the baser emotions, all the pain and rage and hate and pride, leaving nothing behind but an empty, all-consuming lack; and then out of that lack sculpted a facsimile of all the complicated mechanisms of the soul.

I wouldn't even call it greed, because avarice at least has some connection to other emotions. You want a weapon in order to feel secure, you want a beautiful woman in order to satiate your lust, you want a king's feast in order to satisfy your hunger.

I don't think the Crow's Eye even knows why he wants things… he just simply wants.

He wants money, he wants power, he wants women, he wants everything, not for any particular reason, but just because that's what he does. Like how a wolf searches out for meat, or maggots buzz to corpses, the Crow's Eye hungers.

He doesn't want them for anything, or even just to hold and admire and stroke his ego;I suspect he'd chase after the last leg of chicken on the table just as single-mindedly as he would a chest of Valyrian Steel. No, for him, it's a law of existence, as simple as gravity: he lacks something, so he must have it.

Man or woman, bird or beast, rusty iron nail or Blackfyre, it must- no, it will be his. Doesn't matter if it's the broken spindle of the widow down the road, or the treasure hoard from some ancient Sothyori Empire, he wants it all the same.

I don't even think he's capable of comprehending a world in which there's something he does not want, no more than a lion can comprehend a world in which it doesn't hunt lambs. I'm certain the only reason he's not slaughtering every man, woman, and child here for their meager possessions is patience.

I wouldn't even call him evil. After all, would you call a boar evil for goring a man with its tusks? A storm evil for demolishing a village? You're not a victim, no more than a mound of dirt is the victim of a battle in which it's kicked over.

He smiles, and while a blinder man might call it charming, it is one of the most terrifyingly empty things I have ever seen.

"Lady Blackmoth. I've heard much about you.".

Ash's shoulders are tight, ready to spring forward, like me not for one minute fooled by his genial facade.

"Thank you, my lord. I have heard many things about you as well."

He laughs, actually laughs at that. "Only good things, I hope?"

"…if you'd like."

Surprisingly, he speaks in a crystal-sharp Kings Landing noble accent, much different from the high, nasal tones of the Ironborn bandits we encountered on the way here. It wouldn't be out of place at the finest, most sophisticated of court functions, which makes it even more unnerving coming out of the mouth of an axe-wielding pirate.

He's standing up straight now, letting the handles of his axes dangle freely from his grip, looking out at my sister with supreme confidence.

He's still just standing there, hands not even on his axes, radiating nothing but confidence in his ability to emerge from this battle unharmed.

The bell rings, then, sending them rushing at each other,

There's a swing, a block, a clang, and any hope I have of a quick fight is dashed.

I grip the wooden palisade in front of me worriedly. For as long as I've known her, Ash has always had an almost preternatural awareness of herself and everything around her. Fighting her is like fighting a smarter version of yourself, it feels like she knows every move you're going to make before even you do.

That's one of the reasons it's so hard to actually beat her: even if you have the speed to match hers, it won't matter when she's already at the place you were swiping towards.

But here, with the Crow's Eye… there's none of that.

Oh, she's still one of the fastest people I've ever seen, don't get me wrong, but that supernatural sense of awareness about her opponent's actions is almost entirely absent.

Or no, not absent… countered? After all, it doesn't matter if you know your opponents moves in Cyvasse four in advance, if they also know yours four in advance.

Fuck, is the Crow's Eye capable of the same type of awareness as Ash? A man of his skill, his power in the Force, capable of harnessing his battle prowess solely to analysis of the enemy…

That's absolutely terrifying.

"I saw you fighting the little lion, Ashmoth… you were beautiful."

I have to suppress a laugh. Well, of all the things I thought this empty-souled barbarian would be doing, flirting is among the last of them. Although I suppose a sailor is a sailor, no matter how you dress them up. Perhaps he wants to "plunder her booty", so to speak.

Won't he be surprised once he sees what treasure she's hoarding!

Ash snorts. "I would thank you, but it would be a lie. I lost control, plain and simple, and went against everything I believe."

She frowns. "If you see that as honorable, my Lord Greyjoy, it says a great deal more about you than it does about me."

The raider just laughs. "Oh, but it was. The passion, the anger, the raw power and fury… I've sailed from Bear Island to the Arbour, and I've never seen anything like it. Indeed, you truly are a gem most rare, Ashara Blackmoth."

His eyes take on a disturbing glow, like they're lit with wildfire.

"Don't you tire of it?" he says stepping back from the fight, "hiding away, bowing and scraping to these peasants around you?"

Ash's grin becomes fixed.

Euron gives a sly smirk then. "I can see it in you, burning and boiling just as it is in me. That desire, that need for victory, for triumph, for domination over all others. The only real person in a world of things."

"You misread me, pirate, I am not your twisted ilk."

She leaps forward, starting a blazing offense I recognize from our sparring.

The Greyjoy counters it with ease, his axes a blur.

"Oh, but I don't! And 'Pirate'? You're no more a pirate than I am, my lady! You're something more, something real in this world of dream and mist and illusion."

"Of course you would say that. You are a monster, and so of others all you see if prey."

"My lady" he says with a vicious smile, "if I'm a monster… what does that make you, who seeks to best me?"

She grimaces, so swift I only catch it because of how well I know her. "I am a woman, Greyjoy, and a knight, though I have sworn no vows before the Seven. Make of that what you will."

He cackles at that. "You really think you're some sort of… noble warrior? A woman of the people, a champion of these flat little phantoms?"

"That's all that the world is, you know when you truly look. Just light, playing off the morning dew… like a mummer's shadow-play, and only we can draw back the curtain."

She growls. "Those 'phantoms', as you call them, are my family, my friends, my lovers. They have thoughts and feelings just as I do, their souls shine like ours, if not as brightly."

"Careful," he snarls, his rapid change of emotion taking me by surprise "You might insult me, comparing me to these little wretches."

"Good." my sister says, I can see feel rage and indignation billow out of her.

She moves forward, drawing deeply on the Force as the Greyjoy does the same, their strikes coming more quickly than any outside the Kingsguard. Back and forth they go for almost a minute, trading furious blows, switching between styles quicker than I can follow.

After a minute, the Greyjoy breaks the stalemate by slamming his axe into her shoulder hard enough to cripple if it were live steel, and Ash lets out a snarl of pain. "You are a plague."

He makes a dark sound, somewhere between a snarl and a chuckle. "Oh? By what measure?"

"By any." she says.

She launches into a series of attacks, the clang of sword on axe ringing out over the grounds. "I've heard your father is a moral man, how saddened he must be by you."

"Cruel, Ashara, cruel!"

She glares.

"Do not presume such familiarity."

"Why not? Should not two peers cross swords as equals?"

She snorts at that, amusement the first emotion I can feel other than caution and righteous anger. "You are more foolish than I thought, if you presume us peers."

"Oh? You cannot feel it then? How we are so much weightier than the sheep?"

She scowls. "I know not of what you speak."

He snarls, low and primal, and rushes towards her. "You know it, just as I do! So I just-"

He makes an leaping overhand swipe, yelling.

"do"

Ashara parries a slash.

"not"

An overhand slash hammers down.

"understand!"

He rights himself

"-why you seem so set on pretending it is not the case!" he growls, making a sideways slash strong enough to cave in plate.

My sister just stands there,resolute.

"I am not you, Euron Crow's Eye" she says, her soul practically radiating power.

The Greyjoy just snarls, and slashing a few more times.

"I will beat you." Ash says with a focused expression as she parries. I'm struck by how certain she sounds: not confident, but certain. It's not a threat, or even a prediction that she's issued forth… it's a fact.

He swipes at her, sharp and vicious, just like him. "Bold, Ashmoth, to make such grand assumptions.".

She parries his swipe, and they move into another exchange of blows before she responds. "'Ashmoth'? A strange name, from a strange man, but not one I find all too displeasing."

He nods. "For it is only right. Names are power in this world, and so your power needs a fitting title."

She nods. "I suppose to you that would be evidently plain, with your title set upon every pair of lips. 'Crow's Eye' they say, 'the darkest kraken'."

He gives a bloodthirsty smile. "Aye, a crow's eye I am."

She snorts, ducking under a blow to just barely miss his helmet. "I shouldn't be surprised. Of course you'd chose to grant yourself his name. A wretched raven bathed in blood, a slayer of both kin and kings."

"Hmm," he says, smiling "'wretched'? Perhaps. But while the King bled out upon the grass, his body pierced with raining shafts of ash-wood… such 'wretched' birds flew above untouched. So tell me, who was the greater man? The one that's 'evil', or the one that's 'good' and 'just'?"

I don't think I've ever seen her immerse herself this deeply into the currents of magic, into the weight of her own soul pressing on the world… I can feel her own cloak of majesty settle upon her shoulders, billowing out and giving heart to all the spectators.

She sneers at him. "'Great'? If you measure greatness so, I'm glad to be a pauper. A hero's blade is showered in fresh blood, but so too's the cultist's knife that slits his sleeping brother's throat upon an altar."

The Greyjoy's smile only widens, taking on an almost unnatural length. "And yet, the brother dies, and the man will live. For all your King did bear the sword, he fell yet to a bow. A crow's eye of a crow's eye, made an eyeing crow."

Their movements seem rhythmic now, almost as if they've choreographed a mummer's farce.

Is this what it is to see the fights of legends? When Bloodraven looked down upon the Redgrass Field, did he see dancing?

She snarls, leaping into a powerful Juyo overhand slash. "You know nothing, little worm, the one that gnaws the bones of those like me! You call yourselves a crow, a raven red, and yet vultures you and he will ever be!"

I grimace, glad that I can only hear their conversation because of the spells Ash taught me to enhance my senses, and even then have to struggle to make it out amid the clashing rings of steel. I've always known she holds some strange reverence for figures of legend, but to defend Daemon Blackfyre… Well, I can't imagine that going over well.

He gives a vicious smile. "And yet your fire's black no more… bleached white upon the Field by hungry birds to gore."

She snarls at that, blurring forward with a slash he only barely parries, sparks flying from where her greatsword clashes against his axe.

For almost five whole minutes they go back and forth like that, in absolute silence, faces fixed into masks of concentration as they draw on the Force. On the sixth minute though, and they back off by some unseen signal, panting.

The Crow's Eye eventually gets his breaths under control, and stares at Ashara from across the field.

"You know" he says, "That spot of treachery, where the noble dragon fell. Where the crows impaled him, and on him feasted well. I often wonder, how did it gain its bloody name? Which broke first upon the wheel? Was it named because of treachery? Or was it for that name chosen, by Ser Bittersteel?"

Ash's eyes narrow. "Two and three make five, no matter if the three comes first. So what does it matter, truly, if or not the curser's born before the curse?"

He looks at her intensely. "My dear, it is the only thing that matters, for you walk on-"

He wrenches his axe out of her parry, and continues. "paths already tread: don't you know the grasping hand is stricken down, the black hero's blood is shed?"

Her eyes narrow, her magic billowing.

He gives her a smug, enigmatic smirk. "A clever jape, I think, for how ill-eased you are I am not the claw that slays, nor with them am I allied. By no axe of mine their blood will spill, nor slipping tongue, nor secrets I confide. No, it's by your arrogance they'll fall, by howling, roaring pride!"

He leaps forward, and I can see why he's gotten this far. He's an excellent fighter, yes, but nothing worthy of legend. Above my level, but not so far above it that it would be impossible for me to reach in a decade.

No, what makes men falter before this great beast inside a man's skin is his aura, his soul. It pulls at the world invisibly, tugging on the grand weave of the world to make him… more.

I can't really think of another way to describe it. It's as if with his very voice he's turned life into a fable, and stripped back the curtains to show you that he is simply more: the dragon to your terrified smallfolk, but with Serwyn coming to slaughter him.

It's not majesty, not quite that sensation I can feel when Ash truly delves deep into the waters of the Force, but something much more sinister. It's as if majesty had some twisted mirror image, imparting the knowledge that you are as an ant before a hateful god, and so must tremble in awe and terror.

Even I feel wary as I gaze upon him, far away as I am, but my sister stands before him entirely unintimidated. Her own soul radiates with light, pushing his darkness back, trumpeting to the heavens a defiance of his hunger and the truth of her own majesty.

She meets his eyes with a smirk, blocking a swing of his axe with uncanny grace. "Hah! Before I called you vulture, and my judgment does not fail. But I think a squid fits all the better… a thousand grasping arms yet not one tail!"

He growls, blocking a few slashes from her with almost preternaturally well-timed parries. to counter her Ataru. "Careful now, you little moth, we wouldn't want you caught in some sort of lordly wroth."

He lunges forward then with a growl, faster than even Jaime Lannister, striking out at her head.

Ash is unsettled, I can tell that from here. She might not show it, but I can see it in the way her hands clench around the hilt of her blunted greatsword as she parries his rapid blows, the way her feet are fractions of an inch out of position when she steps to guard, the way her aura billows out with wariness, shrouding her form like a cloak against the kraken's hunger.

Her inattention costs her, and she takes gash on her upper arm from his iron axes, the first wound she's taken the entire tourney. I can practically feel the crowd suck in a breath, waiting to see if this is the moment when the moth is finally humbled.

Ash is better than that though, and she regains her initiative quickly, managing to use the superior maneuverability to her two-handed grip to lock one of his axes and wrench it across the field.

Her mantle radiates awe and majesty, and I look in wonder at her full power in the Force. For a moment, her soul shines so brightly it outstrips even the Crow's eye's, and the whole world seems to rotate around her, the only giant in a world of paper ants. Even the mad kraken cannot triumph in the face of her majesty.

Greyjoy, though, seems entirely unintimidated. In fact, he seems nearly delirious with hunger at the sheer presence my sister exudes.

"Yes! That power which will shake the world, that sword which slays the beast! I'll eat your soul then, hero moth"

"And so now,"

He leaps forward then with a mad roar, wildly swinging with his axes as his eyes alight with rampant greed, faster than I've ever seen outside of my sister or Arthur Dayne.

"Let mE fEaS̴͗Ţ̵!"

I shake in fright at his power as he leaps forward, but still my sister stands strong, a light unwavering against his darkness.

"Enough. she says, the syllable ringing out like a clear bell, purifying the land of his noxious presence as it spreads throughout the grounds.

She dodges, a leaf in the wind against is ferocious storm, and locks his last remaining axe away from him, throwing him to the ground and holding the blade of her greatsword to his throat.

"Yield." she says, determination shining from every syllable.

The Crow's Eye looks at her then, eyes wild, whatever facsimiles of emotions he has churning in the Force.

"No! I am the one that wins this!" he shouts, struggling against her Force-enhanced strength.

Finally, after a minute or so of bucking and writhing, he stills, all the fight seeming to go out of him.

"I yield." he eventually says, growling.

Ash gets up slowly, blunt blade still aiming at his neck, and backs away.

Once she's out of striking range, she lowers her blade, and he leaps to his feet with a snarl. For a moment I tense, thinking he's going to go back on the attack, but he begins to calm down though, visibly tamping down on his emotions, a truly ugly sneer breaking out on his face.

"You may have won today, pig, but you will not outrun me for long. I have seen it."

"No man sees all ends." Ash says with a steely voice, her aura fading as she stops drawing so deeply on her magic. "Least of all you, with just one eye."

Euron just gives her another terrifying scowl, his whole face twisted with rage like a twisted clay bust, stomping off.

His 'squire' runs up to him, a young boy dressed in the nine-headed serpent of house Saltcliffe. "M-Milord! A-Allow me to-"

Euron snarls, slashing out with his hand-axe and almost taking out the boy's eye. "Fuck off! Away with you, worm! Useless snake-fucking son of a whore…."

"M-Milord! P-Please a-a-allow me t-" The squire says.

"I said fuck off!" Euron roars, slamming his blade down into the young man's foot.

The squire screams as he topples, the crowd going silent at the display of brutality.

"You hear that, Ashmoth?" he screams, voice half-feral, "I'm going to fucking kill you! I'm going to find that bitch father of yours and nail his split cock to his own forehead! I'll take your whore mother and shove her own legs up her cunt so far they burst through her throat! I'll find your little sister and rape her eye sockets bare in front of all-!"

Ash meets him then, her fist shattering his jaw as her eyes glow a sulfuric yellow with rage.

"Leave, now." She says, hate palpably wafting off her, "before I do something I'll regret and slit that wretched little throat of yours."

Euron just growls, pushing away her sword and righting himself, stomping off into the barracks.

I flop down onto my seat after he stomps out, the wind taken out of me.

The absolute power of the two combatants I just witnessed crashes over me, and I begin to shake in terror.

Gods. What kind of monster is Euron Greyjoy?

And what does it say about my sister that she can oppose him?

NOTE: And behold, your very own young senator from Naboo… Euron Greyjoy! Look what happens when you give a sociopath access to the Dark Side of the Force!

I know he may seem a bit out of character here, especially at the end, but please withhold your judgment until the next chapter comes out. His personality and seemingly out-of-character actions will be explained there.

Euron is scary for the same reasons Palpatine is scary: whereas most darksiders fuel the force with their negative emotions (hate, rage, anger, sadism, etc.), Palpatine and Euron don't even have those emotions, at least not in the conventional way. Just a single-minded existence consisting of possessing everything, and destroying anything he can't possess, like a twisted reflection of the ideal Jedi state of Zen calmness and passionless willpower.

If you stopped to ask Palpatine why he was becoming Emperor, knowing that he could easily live a life of wealth and luxury using his powers and Sith assets, he literally wouldn't be able to even understand the question.

It would be like asking a normal person "hey, why do you like to eat tasty things?" The answer is "because they're tasty", it's just a self-evident fact. That's what being 'tasty' means. Sure, you can imagine a world where you live off nothing but flavorless oatmeal and gruel, but it would be a form of torture.

"Sha Naqba Imuru" or "Sha Nagba Imuru" is the first line of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written story in existence, and means "He Who Saw the Deep" in Sumerian. Fitting for Euron, I think.

For reference, Euron is not the only fighter capable of high-level Force precog on Ash's level, she'll be matched by the very top-teir fighters like Barristan and Arthur Dayne. It's just that Durran hasn't seen either of the fighting yet, so Euron is his only example.