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Across the Narrow Sea – the Lost Lady

Sometimes, she was surprised by how fully she had slipped into the life aboard the Shy Maid. Sometimes, when Yandry offered them a particularly big fish, she smiled with the joy of being able to enjoy the simple things in life. She often sat on the stern and stared at the beauty of the sun going down, sinking into the Mother Royne into a brilliant display of violet, red, and liquid gold. She had her lessons to teach, her duty to fulfill. She had a little boy who stared at her in awe, expecting of her to reveal the world to him. She no longer had a palace of snakes, more numerous than the snake of all Dorne combined. She no longer had a mad and powerful king. She no longer had the smell of burning flesh filling her nostrils, gagging her. She no longer had to smile until her jaw hurt. In a way, despite all the hardships they were faced with every day and the secrets they had to keep with their lives, she felt liberated. At least there were no enemies here, hidden or evident.

"What are you doing, my lady?" a familiar voice asked her.

She turned around and frowned disapprovingly. "Please, Griff, you know you shouldn't call me this."

"I also know we are alone here," he said. How many times they had had that same conversations, how many times she had warned him to call her just Septa Lemore! And he still wouldn't do it, despite the very real danger that he'd let the cat out of the bag in front of someone they really didn't need to hear. Deep in her heart, she knew why he did it. Griff might be a roughened wandered but Jon Connington needed to cling to something of his old life. He was terrified of forgetting something, anything… although she suspected he'd gladly erase Elia if he could. In all honesty, once she would have done the same. Now, the memory of the Princess no longer hurt her with the deep first pain that she had thought would never fade. Time was really a great healer, better than any master.

"Why are we alone?" she asked, her skin suddenly crawling. Now that she came to think of it, for some time it had been too calm aboard the boat…

He shifted his weight. "Well, I think…"

"Where is he?" Lemore asked sharply, her mind flowing with images of all the grave things that could happen to an active, inquisitive boy in the streets of Volantis. Especially this child. Elia's victory. Arthur's undoing. Rhaegar's vindication. Jon's new chance. The Usurper's nightmare. Ashara's hope. Nothing should happen to him, Thankfully, she had dyed his hair first thing this morning.

"I'm sure he'll be back soon," Griff said.

"I wish I were," she said. Despite her best efforts to conceal it, each time Aegon left her side, she got anxious – a deep, mind-racking anxiety beyond the control of her will. She might have forgotten many things of her old life and chosen to forget others but she never forgot the way Elia and that poor babe had died, the way Rhaenys had been stabbed to death. But before she could really panic, a distinct blue head on the riverbank made her heartbeat slow down to normal. Now, everything in her life was fine again.

"I might go out tonight," Griff suddenly said. "Do you want to keep me company?"

"Oh yes!" Lemore replied without thinking and saw the smirk he didn't quite manage to conceal. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," he said. "I am just glad to see a glimpse of Lady Ashara underneath your Septa manners. I swear, you've become more religious than the High Septon… aside from your daily baths, of course. Each night, I say my thanks to the Seven that we weren't yet besieged by a horde of men fighting for your favor."'

His words were very irreverent. The breeze was musing his hair and for a moment, it was as if they were both young and carefree, as they had been at King's Landing. At that damned tournament at Harrenhall before everything went to the seven hells. A river bird screeched, bringing her back to their present.

"I find the Faith of the Seven a fascinating subject to be explored," she said stiffly. She had been truly stunned to find such comfort and wisdom in the religious teaching after losing everything – except for Aegon. She no longer dreamed of the tiny, perfectly formed babe slipping out of her dead, strangled in his own cord. She had a living child now, even if it was not born by her. She would do anything for him – all she hadn't been able to do for his sister or mother. And she would succeed. In the hours of her darkest despair, she often went back to the prophecy of the maegi all those years ago, when she had been a child. You shall be a king's mother, the woman had said. But you shall not birth a king. Surely that meant that they'd be victorious? They had to be. They had sacrificed too much not to be.

Now Aegon was near, aboard the Shy Maiden, with a dark purple shell in his hand. Hear it, Septa Lemore! He would probably exclaim. It sings along with the river.

No, she thought. It wasn't a sacrifice. And our life here is not so bad. Maybe I am even happy.

The same evening…

It was not the first time she came to dine into an inn and she usually enjoyed it. Tonight, though, she was feeling quite nostalgic. Maybe it was the sunset, almost as magnificent as the one at Starfall. Almost. Or maybe it was the fact that her nameday was getting close – her real nameday, the one she had always shared with the people who loved her. All of them gone now. Arthur, Elia, the stillborn child – they had all been taken from her. Ned had abandoned her. And she had abandoned Arel and Allyria. How are you, she wondered. Are you thinking of me right now? Allyria surely didn't – she was so young. She probably didn't even remember Ashara. But she remembered her. Arel, on the other hand, would think about her, she was sure. He was too kind not to. Arel, she thought. Arel. Are you well? Do you keep faith as I do in better times and hope that they come soon?

Griff came back to their table carrying a tray, accompanied by a big man in traveler's clothes who gave Lemore an approving look and a wink. Ever the flirt, she could not resist throwing a smile of her own in reply. Griff shook his head, exasperated but not particularly concerned. If there was any constant in Lemore's life, it was her fierce devotion to Aegon. No man could ever sway her attention and loyalty from him. And if she enjoyed a brief tryst or three in the meantime, well, it was no concern of his. The Seven knew that the woman could use some joy in that wretched life of theirs. But he had an inkling that tonight, any thoughts of flirt would leave her head as soon as she heard what the man had to tell them.

"Westeros?" she asked impatiently, her face lit up. They were so hungry for news. "You are coming from Westeros? What's going on there?"

They listened attentively to the Usurper's latest blunders, to his Queen's increasing haughtiness, to the rumour that Prince Doran Martell had sent his lady wife away and how Lady Allyria Dayne had thrown herself at his feet with the young Lord Dayne in tow, begging for his protection and guidance in keeping her home and the boy lord with her…"

"What?" Lemore interrupted sharply. "What are you saying? Lord Arel Dayne is way older than Lady Allyria, they are…""

He looked at her, obviously quite surprised that a merchant's daughter would know such details. Griff shot her a warming look. But Lemore was beyond cautiousness. "Lord Dayne is older than her!"

"The old lord, yes," the man agreed. Griff's breath whistled though his teeth. "I am talking of the new one, Lord Edric Dayne. He is the lady's nephew and he inherited after his father's death. The Daynes of High Hermitage tried to obtain guardianship over him, thus enraging Lady Allyria greatly."

He is dead. He died without me there. For a moment, she could hear anything else, caught in the grip of grief and bitter regret. But gradually, the words of the man started making sense and this night, she went to her bed with the image of two children living through the threat of being separated and misused when all they had was each other. She had missed out so much of their lives. She hadn't even known that despite her many miscarriages – four that she knew of – her good-sister had finally managed to produce a living child. She hadn't been there for the joy, not for the grief when Lady Dayne had died. She hadn't been at Arel's deathbed – she hadn't even known that he was ill! Had she known that the wound he had gotten at the Trident would finally kill him, she might have acted differently. He never told me, she told herself fiercely but it did not help. And now, she couldn't do anything to help the children. She could only thank the Seven that Allyria had rescued herself and Edric from dear cousins from High Hermitage's grasping hands!

It was such a small comfort for everything she had missed out, for everything she had failed to do, for everyone she had lost. She had been telling herself that she hadn't lost Arel, not truly. Not like Arthur. But she had. And she had lost these children who didn't even know her. She had lost her past and she was now on another continent, living a life that wasn't hers. And she didn't even have the right to grieve openly for the death of a loved one.

For first time in years, Ashara Dayne buried her face in the pillow and wept.

A. N. It was just an idea that came to me in early in the morning - like, 3.00 AM early. Consider it my Christimas present for all of you. I hope you enjoyed it. Merry Christmas!