The Journal of Ashara Dayne- everything she didn’t say

I did not expect to like Ellaria Sand as much as I find I do. Elia has told me for years she thought we would get along, and I resisted the idea longer than was fair to either of us. Her Uller blood made me cautious, which I am now prepared to admit says more about my caution than her. 

She proved to be a valuable ally before the evening had barely begun. Arthur had agreed to fight alongside Oberyn in the melee before learning that Oberyn had joined Robert Bartheon’s team. This placed my brother in the kind of position his sense of duty finds genuinely intolerable. Ellaria helped me to convince Oberyn to resolve the matter, and then with more charm or grace than even I have ever commanded, wore Lord Baratheon down into accepting the change without taking offense. I watched her manage him and felt something close to professional admiration. Elia would be insufferably pleased to know she was right about us.

There was a play, and I will not dwell on it at length because it does not deserve the ink, but I will say it was extraordinary in the specific way that only something performed with absolute sincerity and no discernible talent can be. Ser Barristen had warned me beforehand, with the careful expression of a man trying not to say too much, that Arthur had been roped in to play the King in this play, which was the only reason I stayed. My brother played the role with the particular dignity of a man who has accepted his fate, and intends to meet it well. 

Barristen found me afterwards and we reached an immediate and comfortable agreement about the quality of what we had witnessed, which was no quality at all. Several lords and ladies joined us and somewhere in conversation it emerged, much to Barristein’s visible regret, that the story had been based on one of his own adventures. The questions about the dog and worm- fabrications of the minstrels- followed. I watched him absorb them with great patience. Eventually I took pity on him and rescued him from the conversation. He accepted my aid with the gratitude of a man too dignified to say he was grateful. We spoke of other things after, what-ifs mostly. He said he wished he could see Starfall someday and meant it, which is rarer than it ought to be. Lords ask about Starfall often enough, its history, its sword, what it costs to hold. Barristen simply wished to see it. 

My brother seems well, which I held onto more than I expected to. The months since Harrenhall have been hard, and knowing Arthur to be present and accounted for brought me comfort. He is as ever, entirely himself. Committed to his duty, somewhat immovable, and through it all the same brother I knew from our overlapping time at the Red Keep. The distance we have both stopped pretending isn’t there still very much present. 

Dinner did not help, we found ourselves across from two minor lords of the Crowlnads who decided the appropriate use of a shared meal was to interrogate Arthur on his vows at length. I watched him absorb it with the stillness he uses when he is being tried and does not intend to show it, which I recognize because I use it myself. Then one of them asked whether Arthur would be arranging my betrothal, or if that would fall to Prince Doran. I corrected the matter before Arthur had to. As Lady of Starfall, the duties of arranging a suitable match would fall to me. Prince Doran seemed mildly surprised, and I did assure him I would seek his council as my Lord Paramount. 

Jon was here, and we found a few quiet moments together in which we could speak candidly as we have only been able to in person. He seemed tired in a way that letters do not fully convey. The new duties as Hand of the King sit heavily on him, and I don’t think he has found the shape of who he is inside of them yet. He raised the question of a seat on the small council, master of whispers. I told him I needed time to consider, which turned out to be optimistic of me, as the king raised it himself before the evening was much older, and both asked me to accompany them to the high table. 

 There are things I will not write here. I will only say: I understand now why Jon looks the way he does. I understand it in a way I would prefer not to, another burden I now must carry. Some things are safer kept entirely within one person.

I struggled to find a moment of quiet to speak to Ned until it was already too late to make good use of one. 

By the time I was able to speak to him in some relative peace, I had already been burdened by the requests of his grace and  Jon. My condolences on the loss of his brother and father were soured by the request he take an audience with the King. I had caught the edge of a conversation earlier, enough to know that he held Rhaegar responsible, at least in part, for his father and brother. I can’t say I disagree with him. I know what it is to watch someone you love placed in an impossible position by a king’s actions, and I know what it costs to hold your tongue about it. I had hoped, and I use that word with full awareness of my own niavity, that delivering the King’s request for an audience might be received as something other than a provocation. It was not.

Ned asked for things Rhaegar cannot give. The removal of the pyromancer, abdication, a regency composed of lords whose ambitions I would not trust with a grown man, let alone a child king. He left upset, and I foolishly followed him. I knew it would accomplish nothing, and that the conversation with Rhaegar would sit between every word, and it did. At Harrenhall there had been an ease between us, the sort between two people who have not yet had cause to stand on opposite sides of anything. That ease is gone, and what replaced it is not nothing, but it is harder to carry. 

I know better than to hope, or to wish for things that cannot be. I have known better for some time, but I am aware that this is not the same thing as doing better.

I did find some joy in other areas this evening. I intend to enter the lists tomorrow, which produced a reaction in the assembled lords and knights that was entirely worth the inconvenience of finding a partner. Jon had asked if I would fight alongside him but in the time it took me to see if Arthur intended to enter the lists, and learn he had already committed to pairing with Gerrion Lannister, Jon and Barristen came to an accord as well. Traitors, the lot of them, and I told them so as well before I left to find another partner. 

I did ask Ellaria first, who agreed to sleep on it, but seemed unlikely to actually agree. To my luck, Lady Madge Morment of Bear Isle overheard our conversation and offered to pair with me instead. Two women in the lists together, I intend to enjoy the bafflement nearly as much as the fighting.