"Sandor… I'd like for you to come to the feast with me."

"Fuck off." A door slams in my face.

Well, I suppose I should have expected that.

"Erryn, do you want to come to the feast with me?"

"Oh… will there be people there?"

Definitely should have expected that.

Thankfully, Durran proves much more receptive to my invitation, and is practically walking on air by the time we reach the entrance of one of this cursed castle's many large halls.

I have to hold back a shudder as I feel its presence press down around me, and once again I question why anyone would choose to voluntarily live in this cursed hellhole.

Durran shoots me a look out of the side of his eye, and I shake my head. Shit, he can probably feel this too, can't he?

Thankfully, the man Durran wants to see isn't to far in the hall, muting the worst of the effects.

"Lord Robert!" I exclaim happily, walking up to the large man, "excellent to see you once more!"

The large, large man turns to me, and once again I marvel at just how potent the blood of Durran Godsgrief is, to carry on this almost giant-like size throughout hundreds of generations. Gods, he must be almost seven feet, with shoulders three feet across… If the Mountain that Rides wasn't eight and a half, I'd call him the tallest man I'd ever seen.

"There she is!" he exclaims merrily, lifting his mug filled with ale, "the woman of the hour!"

I just smile. "Ah, I wouldn't say that…"

"Don't lie, man!" he says with a laugh, "they're practically cheering your name in there!"

I raise an eyebrow. "I thought you were aware I'm not a man, Robert. Or do I need to re-assess some rumors about you and Prince Oberyn?"

Robert gives me a glare. "Calling me a sword-swallower, eh? Is that how you speak to your Lord Paramount?"

Durran chokes, and I roll my eyes theatrically. "Well, unless I'm a Faceless Man, it certainly seems to be."

He stares me then, gaze intent, and I meet his eyes unflinchingly.

A second later, we both break, and burst out into laughter.

"Hah!" Robert says, slapping me on the back, "I knew you were the good sort, Lady Blackmoth."

"Please" I say with my most charming smile, "call me 'Ash'."

"Well then Ash!" he says with a smile, "I suppose you can call me Robert then!"

"I think I prefer 'Bobby'."

He lets out a loud, bellowing laugh at that, and I smile.

"Oh, right!" he says, slapping his forehead, "let me introduce you! Ash, this is Ned. Ned, Ash."

I look at the man standing next to Robert, quiet enough to pass beneath my notice if it wasn't for his shining Force presence.

I hum, and extend my hand in a traditionally masculine greeting.

"Greetings, Lord Ned. I am Lady Ashara of House Blackmoth, and this is my brother Durran."

Durran bows to the both of them. "It is a true pleasure, my lords."

'Ned' nods, and grasps my hand back. "It is also a pleasure, my lady" he says with a quiet tone. "Lord Eddard Stark, at your service."

I practically choke on my laughter as Durran turns white. Leave it to Robert Baratheon to introduce the second in line to a Kingdom with the same gravitas as some smallfolk at a tavern drinking companion.

"Robert," I say with a nod, "I believe you haven't met my brother yet?"

The giant of a man turns to look at Durran then. I have to hide a smirk. If Robert expected my brother to be intimidated by his size, he's in for a grave disappointment. He grew up with me as an older sister, and all my six feet and four inches.

Robert apparently finds whatever he's looking for, and smiles, slapping Durran on the back. "Well met, Master Durran!"

Durran smiles shakily, still nervous about pissing off a man who could probably draw a sword and execute him right now with no consequences.

"I saw you in the fifth melee," the Stag Lord says with a smile, "you're a good fighter, man! I can always appreciate a man who knows his way around a hammer!"

I grin. "Remember the rumors, Robert…"

He guffaws at that, and I can think I even see Lord Eddard crack a smile.

"Anyways" I say, slapping Robert on the shoulder, "I just wanted to introduce Durran here. He's the heir, after all, so it'll be good for him to know his liege Lord."

Robert chuckled. "Lord Othell's not attending, if I recall correctly."

I let out a theatrical groan. "Don't even make me start. Gods, you'd think that man would rather shove a whole gauntlet up his ass than acknowledge he's my cousin."

Robert laughs, even as Durran blanches. "Well," the large man says with what even I have to admit is a roguishly charming smile, "I, for one, am glad to recognize you as a kin, Lady Ash. Second Cousin, you said, through Laena the Wh- the Lewd?"

I roll my eyes. "You can call her 'whore', Robert, it's what she was."

He laughs again, and I say my goodbyes, leaving my brother to make a good impression on our liege.

"So, you said you're the heir? Doesn't Lady Ash have a twin brother?"

Unfortunately, my next encounter is far less pleasant that that.

"Lord Lannister!" I say through gritted teeth, "how excellent it is to see you this night!"

"Lady Blackmoth" he says coldly, eyes like flecks of matte jade, "I congratulate you on your victory over my son."

"Thank you" I say, and I can't help the pleased smirk that comes to my face.

Unfortunately, Durran's words ring in my ears, and I my smirk turns to a grimace.

"He… he was a noble fighter, a worthy testament to the greatness of your house."

If anything, his frown gets more severe at that.

"Speaking of that" I say with gritted teeth, "I'm afraid I must…"—and oh how it burns to spit this out—"apologize for my rash words."

His expression doesn't change.

"I'm afraid I was rather… overwrought by worry for my father, and so jumped to conclusions, slandering the name of a great and storied noble house."

"I see." he says flatly, eyes boring into mine.

"It was…" I choke back bile, "my womanly passions that spirited my sense away. You know how us ladies are, Lord Lannister."

His frown deepens. "No, I'm afraid I don't. My wife was an eminently rational person, not some simpering fool"

A crack rings out in the silence that surrounds us, and I realize that my fingers have snapped the stem of my steel fork in half.

"Indeed" I say, practically hissing the word. "Please accept my deepest regrets, and know that I hold your house in the deepest possible respect, and stare in awe every day at all the work you do to encourage the Seven Kingdoms to prosper."

Everyone knows he practically runs the seven kingdoms, and constantly feuds with the King, so not-quite-outright referencing that fact while skirting the limits of treason should help stroke his ego.

He stares me down at that, seeming to search my eyes for some unknowable quality.

He gives a brief scowl, apparently not liking what he's found, and I have to restrain the urge to throttle the pompous prick. "Very well" he says with a disdainful sniff, and he turns away.

Slowly, my hands unclench, and my breathing relaxes.

I sigh. Well… I suppose that's about the best I could hope for from the vengeful lion.

"My lady, may I have this dance?"

"Of c-…" I turn around to face the noble who's tapped my shoulder, only to stop.

"Course… Lord Euron."

Truthfully, my inability to pick up on him with my passive Force senses should have been a clue.

"Well?" he says, giving me a roguish grin. "Can't a man ask to dance with the woman who put him in the ground?"

If I wasn't more composed I'd be gaping in shock. There's absolutely no trace of the man of yesterday in his tone, no trace of his madness, his mysteriousness, or even his rage at losing. Only a calm, witty, charming second son, eager to prove himself in a world hostile to his people.

That alone would not be absurd—there are plenty of Lords far more skilled at mummery, after all—but the squid actually means it. I can feel him through the Force, his cloaking is not yet strong enough to hide from me… and he honestly feels no rage right now, no hatred, no ill will. It's as if yesterday's battle hadn't even happened.

Durran spoke to me of him not having true emotions, only facsimiles of them… but truly I don't think I understood until now. Here is a man that absolutely humiliated himself in front of me, a man who I beat completely and utterly… and his rage is nowhere to be found, nonexistent in the face of his overwhelming nature.

Does he imagine this is just some setback? That he will won day win, one day have me in whatever way he desires, that today was just some fluke?

No… no, I think this is more than that. No man so easily takes upset to their view of the world, especially not as drastically as he has… I would bet all the gold in Lovecraft's petty coffers that's he's rationalized away his own failure, his rage swept back up in the clockwork mechanisms of his greedy mind.

As the music starts up, the Crow's Eye sweeps me onto the floor.

"I must apologize" he says with a charming smile, "I'm afraid I rather lost my temper yesterday."

I raise a single eyebrow, giving him a flat look.

He chuckles. "Fair, fair. I must say, I was quite uncivilized there. Did you know my squire was the heir of House Saltcliffe? One of my father's chief vassals."

"I did not" I say flatly. I reach out in the Force to try to determine his intentions, but it's like I'm feeling out an iron wall.

"Oh yes" he says with a chuckle, "Lord Mervyn was quite upset when I cut off his heir's foot, I must say. He forced my father to exile me to Essos!"

"So what?" I say with a raised brow, "you're here to tell me you're some… what, some misunderstood Oberyn Martell?

"Heavens no. I doubt you'd be felled by poison, my Lady." He shoots me what even I can admit is a charming smile, which I can only tell is hollow through the Force.

I raise a brow. "I wasn't aware we were still competing."

He gives what seems like an honest laugh at that, and I feel the barest flicker of something that could be called amusement bloom in the depths of his blackened soul.

"Of course we are, my lady. Two such as us, two predators among these seas of fishes… well, could we ever not conflict? If you put two dogs in a cage with only one leg of lamb…"

"That's a rather… odd metaphor" I say. "'Two such as us'? Whatever could you mean?"

He just gives me a knowing smile. "Oh, don't play coy, little Ashmoth. You and I both know exactly what I speak of. We're the chosen ones, the ones that hear the song of the world."

He gives a vicious smile. "The ones who've peeled back the curtains of the world and see it as it truly is."

My hand tightens around his, and for a moment, I'm tempted to slit his throat right here.

"…you speak of the Force."

"Oh, 'the Force'? I suppose so. But Song, Force, whatever it is… you know it just as well as I. I hear the Song, you feel this 'Force'… it's the same, in the end."

I give him a hard look, hands tense even as he smirks. "…why do you speak of such things?"

His smile only widens. "Why, two sharks such as us, swimming in the same sea… well, I just wanted to avoid any misunderstandings."

I cock an eyebrow, voice flat. "…misunderstandings."

"Of course!" he says jovially. "I just wanted to assure you: I won't be seeking revenge against you, or anything of the sort! Won't be… I don't know, sailing to your keep and boiling your family alive in oil, or whatever fun things I'm sure you're thinking of."

My look gets even flatter. "What."

His look grows distant. "Well, before our final battle, at least. All bets are off then! But that's decades away, near the very end of our stories, and I wanted to make sure my rival didn't cripple herself out of some foolish sentiment!"

Somehow, I manage to find a new level of disbelief, eclipsing even the famed Red Wastes of Qarth in sheer dry flatness.

He gives a charming grin, "It wouldn't be sporting, you see!"

I snort, despite myself.

His smiles only grows wider at my lapse in composure, practically shark-like at this point. "We're opposites, you see. It wouldn't be fitting to fight you yet."

I raise an eyebrow, hands tight. "I didn't realize you had such honor, Lord Euron."

He cackles at that. "Oh no, we both know that's not true. No, we're both aware of what I want from you… and what use is shearing a sheep when its hair is only fuzz? What use is there to make a great sacrifice when the stars do not align?"

I hum in curiosity despite myself. Whatever else he may be, this is a man who's gazed more deeply into the esoteric faces of the Force than almost anyone on this continent. Perhaps deeper than even I.

"And was is it that you want from me?"

He smiles. "Why, the same thing you want from me! A legend! A grand sacrifice, on the altar of my own tale! My light mirror, forever stained dark!"

I give him an inscrutable look.

He smiles "We're the two main characters in a mummer's farce, you and I, and our conflict will be the final act. The crescendo in The Song, my darkness against your light."

I raise an eyebrow. Strangely enough, from everything I can feel through the Force he's telling the truth. "'Light mirror'? You have a rather high opinion of yourself, Lord Euron, to see yourself as my equal."

He just gives me a taunting smile. "Do I? There are plenty of tales to eat before yours, my lovely Ashmoth, plenty more indeed. Plenty of room to match your growth."

My brow arches further, and I lean in with the next swell in music. "I must say, I've read quite a bit about magic, and I've never heard of any sort of… essence absorption. Are you sure you weren't scammed by some Qartheen conman?"

I can't help the taunting tone in my voice, despite knowing what a foolish idea it is to poke the pride of another sorcerer.

He chuckles. "No ritual, little moth. Just… well, like I said. We're two characters in a mummer's farce, and I'm the villain. My legend grows with every hero I defeat. Yours as well, as you strike down monsters. For with every bear or shadowcat he cut down, did not Serwyn grow ever-closer to slaying his dragon?"

I raise both my brows. He's… he's not wrong. When two beings such as us clash… well, it only imprints our legends further onto the world. Although I doubt he thinks of it just like that.

"Perhaps" I eventually concede with a nod of my head, the most I'm willing to give him.

He smiles, obviously reading my conclusions from my face (and possibly my aura, if he knows spells similar to the ones Nadros taught me).

"So" I say, changing the subject, "am I just supposed to accept your good word then? Your sense of fairness?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

I tighten my grip around his hand, voice turning chilly. "After all, it would be rather… ah, 'fitting', as you say… the villain to kill the hero's family, and the hero swearing eternal vengeance… I've heard that's a motif you Ironborn rather like, I've heard."

He laughs then, making my grip only tighten. "Heavens no! No, I think we both know each other too well for you to trust my generous nature."

He says the last words with an actual sneer, practically twisting his face with the sheer disdain he holds for the very concept of charity.

"I barely know you at all, Ser."

He just raises an eyebrow, mimicking me. "And yet here we stand, bantering like an old married couple. It's not what I meant when I said 'other half', but I suppose it fits well enough."

I scowl. "You never answered my question. How do I know you won't slaughter my whole family the minute you leave this place, content to have me for yourself as some salt-bride?"

He chuckles. "Oh, you wish my interest was something so mundane, so banal as sex. No, as I said, we both know what we are to each other."

And as strange as it sounds… Now that I look, truly look, I can understand what he's talking about with this "dark mirror" business. Two vortexes in the Force we are, fate swirling and coiling around us, and even now I can hear the echoes of our final battle, our monumental clash.

"Besides" he says, raising a brow to mimic me again, "we are reflections. Our images must match."

He gives me a serious look, the transition from smug self-satisfaction to coldness so rapid it would put King Aerys to shame. "The scales must be balanced."

He continues. "If I took your family from you, you would have to take something of equal worth than me. And I hold no love for my family, and have no true friends. You could shower me in their guts and offal and I'd just complain about the smell!"

He honestly chuckles as that, switching back to levity with nary a thought. Strangely enough, I find myself relaxing despite, or perhaps because of his supremely unbothered tone when discussing the brutal dismemberment of his family. I appreciate his candor: we both know he's an empty monster, so it doesn't do either of us any good to pretend otherwise.

"No", he says, "only by killing me could you even the scales, as Fate would demand, and that would just unbalance them anew! No, our story cannot end like that, will not. Not even the lowliest knight's lady would use a mirror that warped and twisted. The Song goes on, ever as it must."

Despite all sense… I believe him. I can feel how the Force swirls around us even now, twin vortexes, the echoes of our future clash ringing our even this far from it, steel and screams.

I can believe wholeheartedly that he would do nothing to jeopardize that, can do nothing. The symbolic and metaphysical power he would hold in that moment, standing over my broken body, the stainless mirror cracked… it would be beyond even the gods to imagine.

Despite my good sense telling me not to, I match Euron's vicious smile. I always have wanted to be Serwyn…

Heh. Perhaps he's right: we truly do mirror each other, if this type of ambition boils within him as well.

The song winds down then, and he separates from me with a nod. "Well, it's been interesting, Ashmoth. I'll be seeing you."

"Not for a while, I hope." I say with a raised brow.

"Who knows!" the Greyjoy says with a cheerful shrug. "How many times does the hero fight the villain before the final climax?! Mayhaps we'll clash between you skinning lions!"

I snort despite myself, shaking my head. I have to say, even after all the things he's said, I can't find it in to myself to truly despise Euron.

Perhaps it's because we're so similar? Two users of the Force, the most powerful in our generation, great figures and Heroes who the world swirls around…

As strange as it sounds, I actually do trust him to hold his word. Not because I imagine him to be honorable, the Force knows he isn't, but because… well, I can feel it, just as well as he can.

We truly are two sides of the same coin, his darkness to face my light. And one day we will meet, and our clash will be legendary.

A "battle to end all battles" indeed…

AN: Yes, Ashara is taking Euron far too lightly, and perceives him very differently than Durran does because of that. Durran's chapter is a far more accurate representation of him and his threat level. He is being honest though, he won't go after any of Ash's family or friends, she can tell that much at least.

Euron is a legitimate psychopath, and one of the scariest motherfuckers in Westeros, even as a teenager like he is here. Despite her reality check, Ash is still arrogant as sin, and not really ready to understand that there could be someone near to her in power. Notice how all her responses are some variation of "you're overestimating your own strength".

She assigns him a more "normal" psyche and motivations than Durran does, because she subconsciously identifies herself with him in some way.