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CHAPTER SEVEN. ━━━━━━━━━ A girl's life is this: you are born, you bleed, you burn. ━━━━━━━━━
ASHARA THINKS THAT IF HER brother were not a Kingsguard, he would have locked himself in Astoria's chambers from dusk through dawn.
He has duties however, responsibilities through the vows he had sworn all those years ago. Though he treats their guest with a cool courtesy at court, Ashara can see the small touches, a hand on her arm as though to steady her when she descends down a step but that lingers too long, a glance that appears to feel of more than friendship. Elia may suspect it, for who knows Astoria better than her, but Ashara is sure that she is the only one who can see it, the naked hunger for love of it all.
How the court doesn't see it, she'll never fathom — to watch as Astoria's attention is constantly caught by his movements, how a private smile graces her lips when he walks into a room. It doesn't help matters that Arthur is not good at hiding his feeling, those vivid violet eyes filled with unfettered lust wholly unbecoming of a Kingsguard. Prince Lewyn, at least, seems to be on her side, if his constant exasperation is anything to go by.
Ashara suspects that if not for his pride and his desire to be seen as the mighty Sword of the Morning, her brother would have run away with her already.
Doubtless, Arthur is aware of this as well. Once Ashara had laughed openly at his red face when Astoria had stood a little too close to some Northern lord. Her brother's eyes had snapped to her immediately, giving her a scolding look before turning pointedly to speak to Ser Barristan.
Arthur is the warrior, the knight. He is so serious about it, almost sullen and sad. There had always been a loneliness to her brother just like there is grief to his silver prince. She had pitied him, to bear this weight, these phantom scars of being the Sword of the Morning. Ashara remembers how he had been when they were younger, always shy even after he'd grown tall and handsome. Ned is like that, too, never one to boast or brag. She wonders how he had stayed that modest when surrounded by men like his eldest brother and Robert Baratheon. Eddard is plainer than both of them, his features long and thoughtful, his eyes dark glittering beads of grey where a gleam of wry intelligence sparkles. He looks deceptively gentle, though his build is flat and powerful, and he is better with a sword than any of the other men. He wears his brown hair shoulder-legnth, and his cheeks have the beginnings of a beard, past fuzz but still not full enough to properly fill it out.
Ashara is grateful that he hadn't picked up their ways otherwise he would've been just another lord to her.
She tries her best not to think about her budding departure, for King's Lading, however evil its people are, has been her home for many years now. Whenever she returns to Starfall, a part of her would stay within the capitol's walls.
Because Ashara is loyal to Elia. Even beyond her family, it was Elia who had made Ashara, Elia who had found her a place where she mattered, recognised her quick wits and seen her potential, who trusted her and confided in her, and so it is Elia who Ashara is loyal to. Completely, and without exception. Ashara prefers to live in the present rather then dwell in the past, but she is grateful to the princess in a way that she thinks that she can never have hoped to be able to explain — if not for Elia, had she not been sent to court she would have been brought up by someone else and thus have become another Ashara with another life. The Ashara who she is now is someone that she is quite pleased to be, and she is someone she never could have become without Elia's careful work shaping her. It goes beyond the opportunity for advancement, the recognition and importance, the trust and lessons she has received. It is something understood rather than said aloud, something that doesn't have a place in this world run by rules and laws and honour, by the class a person is born into, by the strong at the expense of the rest.
Her father and mother may have brought her into this world, but it is Elia who showed her how to live in it.
WHEN THE CASTLE GROWS QUIET for the night, he silently lets himself into Astoria's chambers.
For when Arthur is not guarding the royal family, helping his brothers of the Kingsguard with something, sparring in the training grounds, and spending long hours with his sister; he is with Astoria, lying on couches in their rooms or sitting underneath the shade of canopies and fruit trees in the gardens and courtyards. They watch the fish in the ponds, she tells him stories of her youth in Starfall and her journeys through Essos.
He is drawn to her like a sailor to a siren song. His actions confuse him more than they irritate him. He has always been so committed to his role as a member of the Kingsguard that he has rarely shown interest in women. He has those feelings of course, but he has always been wise enough to choose his vows over carnal instincts of the flesh.
He is reminded of a visit to a Woods Witch in his youth alongside Oberyn Martell. "One day there will come a woman. Your life will fall apart for her, and so will your heart," the crone had told him.
"A Kingsguard will never fall for any woman," young Arthur had said, having already known his fate.
"Oh, but you will," the woman had replied. "That's what a falling star always does in the end. It falls, and falls apart."
Astoria is reclining on a pile of cushions. Her feet are bare, her dark hair artfully tousled, her robe a green-and-red samite that catches the light of the candles and shimmers as she looks up. Arthur swallows hard. "Were you expecting me?" he asks, smiling lightly.
"I may have," she muses. "Or I was waiting for another one of my lovers. We might never know." Her eyes sparkle with good humour and he cannot stop a laugh from escaping his lips.
"You, my lady, are wicked," Arthur tells her while stepping closer. "We are lovers, then?"
The Pentoshi reaches into the center of her elaborately piled hair and pulls, very precisely, a single pin loose. Slowly, like an unfurling flower, her hair tumbles down, thick and curled and heavy around her, scented with roses and oranges, falling to the curve of her waist. In the light of the low-burning candles, her hair shines like woven gold."Are we not?"
Arthur regards her fondly. The greatest beauty in King's Landing, he heard another knight say once and he was filled with such a twisting maelstrom of emotions — Should he defend his sister? — that it makes him want to laugh to think of now, at men and their desire to defend the pride of women who do not belong to them.
Perhaps, he thinks, fancifully, weakly, humanly, as he drinks in the sight of her, the years in this castle will not be spent alone.
Wishes and hopes are human things, after all.And Arthur is more than a simple man, he knows, but he is weak like one, still.
