The King of Winters

Chapter-140

Ashara

The southern sky was clear and blue that day. The sun was shining bright above them, and the day was pleasantly warm. The autumn air smelled sweet and fresh and on the crisp and green autumn grass sat Ashara Dayne amidst the beautiful autumn blooms of the godswood of the Red Keep. She turned her hands in her lap as she watched the great white wolf of her son lying peacefully with its head resting on his paws.

Ashara remembered the time when the direwolf had been no larger than a newborn puppy, blind and weak and helpless amidst the twigs and leaves of the Wolfswood. She wondered how a seemingly innocent creature had grown to be this fearsome beast that made grown men shake in terror. In that he had been no different than her own son. What was it that Farlen had once told her, that an animal takes after its own master.

Ashara couldn't help but smile a little as she remembered all those years of his boyhood, of how he would run to her with his tales and tears. Her son had always been a shy and happy child, small for his age and prone to hide behind her skirts or take comfort in her arms. He had loved to listen to stories of knights and heroes and would pester Ned for tales of war. He had loved to pretend as her brother with a stick for Dawn, yet was averse to the training sessions with Ser Rodrik. He had loved horses, so much so that ever since he had first learned what a horse was, he had made it a custom to feed the animals in Winterfell’s stables apples and carrots and all other manners of fruits even before he broke his fast. Hullen, the master of horse would never let any of his stablehands feed the mounts before the prince had given them their treats first. Yet he had been too afraid to ride one. She never knew what had happened to the boy he had once been and regretted that she wasn't there, but the shy little boy she had known had grown up into a legend much like his wolf. The singers sang songs of him now in every inn and minstrels praised every little thing he did. And his men... They worshipped him as they had worshipped his father once. They call him Dragonslayer now, a fierce name that even Ned had not earned. When they told her of the tale of how he had brought down a dragon low and freed Winterfell, she had beamed with pride, as proud as the day she had given birth to him.

Yet none of those things seemed to matter to her son, who had won a great victory, the like of which never seen in Westeros since Aegon the Dragon forged the Seven Kingdoms into one. He accepted the cheers of his men as graciously as he could but Ashara could see that his arms being burned from the weight of his sword that he had been wielding for so long, and the way he was hiding his bruises beneath his smiles even now that the fight was done. It hurt her to see him reduced to this. She went out to him by the terrace where Andrew stood gazing at the sea out into the distance.

Ashara slipped her hand into his and twined her fingers with her son’s as she had done a hundred times before. “Will you not come with me to hear what Lord Arryn has to say?”

Andrew stayed staring into the distant waters as if he was searching for something. Her son often spent his days searching for something she could never name. And she was afraid that he might never find what it was he was looking for. “I won't be of any help to anyone there.”

There was glumness to his face and a slope to his shoulders that made her heart go out to him. It saddened her to see him like this, her happy child so clouded by a melancholy that she feared might never leave him. “You will be, Andrew,” Ashara reassured him. “They need your help. We all do.”

Andrew scoffed and turned away from her. He tries to hide his sorrow so hard. But his mother saw them. She was not so blind to not see the grief that hung over him, the same one that hung over his father ever since he lost his father and brother and sister to King’s Landing. Winter is coming, said the Stark words. The words gave her a chill, as they always did but never more than it did now. Truly the winds of winter had for her son as they had once come for his father. His father had managed to survive the test of gods and she had been at his side then. Ashara was not like to let the cruel gods take their son down the same path as well.