Summary: Ashara Blackmoth is the daughter of a bastard knight and a commoner, born with nothing to her name except a small village and a burning ambition to burn her name into the annals of history. Ten years before the Tourney of Harrenhal, she finds a mysterious glowing blue cube… All hail Lady Ash, the greatest knight to ever live!
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,603
Status: Ongoing
Link: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/black-moth-rising-asoiaf-sw-roberts-rebellion-au.100835
Chapter 1: Ashara I: Family Business
AGE 6, 266 AC
This isn't faaaaiiiir! I wanna learn how to swing the sword with papa!
I'm six years old, that should be plenty old enough to start learning fighting! My brother does it, so why can't I?
Hmpf, stupid rules. "Ohh no Ash, girls have to learn to sew, not fight, you have to be the perfect little lady." Bah, what does that dumb Septa know?! Imma be the greatest knight ever, just like papa!!!!
I just need to figure out how to get started.
Suddenly, I feel a tug, almost like there's this biiiiig rope pulling against me. An invisible rope! Since I can't see it.
I squint, because that's what mama always does when she wants to be smarter.
I get the sudden sensation that whatever's at the end of that rope will help me fight like papa. I feel like if I go I'll be strong, and fast, and smart, just like all the knights in the stories!
I straighten up, smiling. Well, if my belly-rope is saying it will help my fight, why shouldn't I trust it? It's my belly after all.
Nodding, I start off down the corridor, going to find my twin brother.
"I don' know about this, Ash" Erryn says from behind me, shuffling along as I hold his hand, "won't mama and papa yell at us?"
I scoff at my brother. What does he know! Uncle Steve always says that you only get in trouble if you get caught!
When I tell him that, Erryn just frowns harder. "A-Are you sure, Ash? I don't think Uncle Steve gives the best advice remember when mom kicked him out because he wanted to wrestle with that nice lady from the kitchens? She seemed really angry then"
"Well duh" I say, rolling my eyes, "that's because he got caught, dingus."
"H-Hey! I'm not a dingus!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Darnit!"
Heh, always works.
The trip to find the source was looooong. Really long. Like, longer than even Septa Marei's longest sermons, the really boring ones on how girls are like flowers!
I still don't really understand that How are we like flowers? If anything, Erri is the delicate one.
By the time we finally get there, the day's gone all the way to night, and we're all the way in the Nygma lands, a whole lordship over! Dad's gonna be soooooo mad, he hates Lord Eddard…
"Wha- Ash? Wha's goin on?"
"I found it!" I yell, totally not screeching shut up Erryn I am a perfect refined lady. Before he can even finish, I rush inside. I can feel it, even stronger now! I have to get whatever's at the end of this invisible rope!
"H-Hey, c'mon Ash! Don't, this is-"
I tune Erryn out as I drag him forward. Dumb brother, can't you see I'm about to become a super famous knight like papa?
"Woah"
My eyes are wide, and I can only nod in agreement with Erryn.
I finally found the source of the pull, after hours and hours of climbing (and ignoring Erryn), and it's beautiful.
It's this weird, glowing box, sitting in some old fancy seat, but it's like I can feel the power coming from it.
"Ash I what is it?"
"I I don't know."
No, I can't have second thoughts now! This is what's been calling me this whole day, I'm not gonna give up right as I'm here!
Taking in a deep breath, I reach out to grab the glowbox.
I almost drop it in surprise once I pick it up, there's a little man inside there!
"Good evening acolytes, I am battlemaster Nadros of the Jedi Order. In this holocron you will find my collective knowledge of fighting styles, both of the Jedi and of several other sects the Force has blessed me with encountering. With this, you should have all you need to grow your skills as a duelist to at least an intermediate level in every style. May the Force be with you…
Huh? What's this weird guy talking about? Hollow crowns are forcing him to fight???
"Hello?" I yell, moving my face close to the little man. "Can you hear me?! How did you get so little?!"
AGE 19, 279 AC
Ashara "Ash" Blackmoth
As the daughter of a minor knightly house, I never really expected to have exceptional prospects. Even worse, it was just recently raised, the first lord being my father Brandyn Storm, baseborn son of Ser Galladon Horpe and the bastard daughter of Lyonel Baratheon.
Brandyn "Bran the Bastard" Blackmoth
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I did have some things going for me though.
The Horpes were a long, proud line, after all, dating all the way back to the Age of Heroes, when it's said that Erryn Horpe carved a throne out pine with the aid of Children of the Forest and became the first Moth King of the Rainwood. For centuries afterwards, the Moth Kings warred with the other petty Kings of the Stormlands, until the Durrandon Storm Kings killed King Erryn IV to unite the Stormlands under their sole rule.
That's right bitches, I'm related to royalty! Well, I'm already related to royalty through my grandmother, but the point still stands.
Unfortunately for me, in the centuries after the Andal conquest, Horpe power slowly waned, and by the time of Aegon they were merely another middling vassal of the Storm Kings, notable only for their storied history and bright red hair. "Dustins of the Stormlands" I heard us called once, and it's a name just as infuriating as it is accurate.
It's telling that despite being relatively new, the neighboring Andal House of Wylde is the principal power of the Rainwood, centuries ago eclipsing the areas former kings.
Since the Conquest, the Horpes have had an even less impressive run of things, with virtually no notable knights or lords to their name. The only exception is "Death's Head Harry" of the Warrior's Sons, who for obvious reasons isn't exactly well-considered in the histories. They may have never particularly suffered, never even coming close to extinction unlike many more notable houses, but they never truly distinguished themselves either.
Regardless, the Horpes were an and storied line, and so the bastard son of Lord's brother? Once acknowledged and raised alongside his trueborn siblings? Well, that would normally be grounds for marriage to a bannerman's second daughter, at least!
Unfortunately, there were a few complicating factors. Namely, my paternal grandmother.
Laena Storm was born to Lyonel Baratheon, who would later gain much infamy as "the Laughing Storm" and a simple maid of Storm's End, so irrelevant that her name isn't even known by her own grandson.
Well granted, it's not like grandmother spend a whole lot of time around dad as a kid, but still!
Regardless, Laena wasn't given much thought in her childhood, being one of the many, many bastard children of the notoriously lusty Lord Baratheon. Not much, that is, until she flowered at fourteen and promptly seduced the second son of House Horpe into her bed days after, hoping for a marriage after she was impregnated.
Needless to say, her plans didn't exactly go unchallenged, and she was thrown out of Storm's End in disgrace as a "whore and slattern" by the extremely pious Rhaelle Baratheon, now lady of Storm's End after Lord Lyonel's death.
Seeing her best chance at a noble life taken from her, my grandmother decided to say "fuck it", and dived headfirst into what Lady Rhaelle would later call a "hedonistic pit of sin and debauchery". Despite my father being her only child, it's said that by her death she'd lain with half the lords of the Stormlands, and even more of the ladies, able to seduce someone into dropping their breeches faster than lightning can strike a Dondarrion.
In other words, her epithet of "Laena the Lewd" was quite well-earned.
Needless to say, a woman of her appetites and lifestyle wasn't exactly the "mothering" type, and so dropped my infant father in the hands of a shocked Galladon Horpe practically the day after he was born.
Ser Galladon, at least, proved a much more dutiful and serious parent, and decided to raise the bastard in his own keep alongside his trueborn children, despite it creating enough of a scandal that he was quietly married off to the eldest daughter of one of the Horpe's strongest bannermen.
Surprisingly that same wife, Jocelyn of House Hasty, was quite kind to her husband's bastard. While certainly not a mother's love, my father's closeness to his trueborn siblings eventually melted her frosty disposition until she regarded young Brandyn as one might regard their child's close friend: not quite love, but definitely somewhat fond.
Lady Jocelyn even allowed him to call her younger brother "Uncle" alongside her children, the surest sign of acceptance she could make. To this day, I still look forward to visits from "Great-Uncle" Bonifer alongside my Uncle Stevron and Aunt Helicent, even though we share no blood with the celibate knight.
My father blames his "natural dashing charisma", but my mother says it's more likely that she didn't want to upset her children, which always make Father sulk.
Despite (or perhaps because of) his ignoble origins, my father quickly managed to surpass his trueborn brother in martial ability, becoming a prodigy with the warhammer. He was present for the very first battles of the War of the Ninepenny Kings and earned his spurs and fief by saving his lordly uncle from a Blackfyre man-at-arms.
"Bran the Bastard", as he became known, would go on to be one of the Stormlands' more notable fighters: not to the level of a """true""" knight, of course, but notable enough to have friends all over the Seven Kingdoms.
That was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.
Despite being none-to-fond of his youngest brother's bastard, Lord Lyonel acknowledged that my father had indeed his life, and so granted him a title as a landed knight. He was enfeoffed as the Knight of Lovecraft Village, a middling town within the Arrington lordship of the greater County Horpe.
My father quickly ingratiated himself to the elderly Lord Arwyn Arrington, a middling bannerman of Lord Horpe, earning quite a bit of goodwill for his dutifulness and sense of justice.
And so, despite his incredibly scandalous origins, it looked like my father had risen as high as he could have hoped: a moderately famous knight, with his own house and keep to pass down to his children, and the friendship of not only his sworn lord, but that Lord's sworn lord as well.
He was slowly gaining prestige as a man who'd risen above his baseborn status, and was getting marriage offers from Lords peer to Lord Arrington, eager to have a daughter be the founding mother of what was sure to be a prominent Arrington bannerman.
And then of course, he had to go and squander it by marrying my mother.
Now, I love my mother, and wouldn't trade her for the world, but in the purely political sense… well, she's not exactly what you'd call a "prime match".
A smallfolk merchant.
A bastard smallfolk merchant.
A Dornish bastard smallfolk merchant.
A Dornish bastard smallfolk merchant with the temerity to succeed as a single unwed woman.
Needless to say, the Stormlords were not amused.
The woman that would go on to become Jynessa Blackmoth was the daughter of an Orphan of the Greenblood and a traveling Lengii sellsword, the result of a night of drunken passion between two people who would never see each other again.
Jynessa of the Greenblood
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Just about the only thing my mother had going for her in terms of marriage was her exotic looks, possessing the brown hair, gold-amber eyes, and incredibly tall yet slender stature of her absentee father's people.
I personally would account her sharp mind and a near-genius affinity for all matters of trade and economics learned at her merchant mother's knee, but us Westerosi tend to look down on such "copper counting", however useful it may be
She met my father when he was traveling back from the Stepstones, the both of them stopping to drink at the same bar in Planky Town, albeit for very different reasons.
My mother, having mastered both trade and intrigue at her mother's feet, had set up a business meeting in the bar to undermine one of her rival Orphans. She was moving towards a consolidation of said rival's business, and with one deal would control all Red Mountain goods coming into the district of Highmarsh. My father, on the other hand, wanted a drink.
In getting said drink, my father dripped and spilled a tankard of beer on her, ruining her most beautiful dress and costing her the deal. According to my father, it was right after that, when he was sprawled on the floor by a slap from this angry six foot two "bronze goddess" yelling that she'd make sure his grandchildren's grandchildren would drown in a river of debt, that he'd decided then and there he'd found the woman he wanted to marry.
From that moment on, my father was smitten, and delayed his return to the Stormlands by two months in order to woo this beautiful woman. He'd left his lands in disarray as he was called back up along with the other Horpe bannermen to fight Maelys's unexpected successes, but he didn't care. This beautiful, vivacious woman was worth it!
She, on the other hand, didn't think much of him at first. Not only did he ruin a dress she'd spent a year saving for with his clumsiness, he also seemed to be nothing more than another randy hedge knight, looking for a quick fuck after the exhilaration of battle against the Blackfyres.
After a few weeks though, once it had become clear he'd delayed his return home for the sole purpose of wooing her, she warmed up to his genial disposition and kind heart. According to her, the moment she knew he was different from the other men who'd propositioned her was when she was following him down a street in the evening, and saw him scare off a group of muggers from some homeless orphans, and then give them his purse full of coin for the night.
She didn't truly fall in love with him though, she said, until he saved her from an angry client. One of her Lyseni contacts had decided that he'd earn more money drugging her and selling her as an exotic bed-slave, and it was only the timely intervention of my father that saved her, fighting through nine of the man's household guard after hearing her scream.
And so, quickly wed after that, my parents settled down to found House Blackmoth, named in honor of the Horpe house animal and the characteristic black mourning-clothes of the Orphans of the Greenblood.
He naturally kept the Death's Head Moths of the Horpes as our house sigil, but he decided to replace the skull-shaped spots with a hammer, seeing it as a way to distinguish our house as more than a Horpe bastard line, along with changing the from grey and bone to a more stark white and black.
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A year after their marriage, they even had an unexpected surprise: not only was Jynessa pregnant, but pregnant with twins besides! And so nine months later Erryn and I were born, coming into the world the scandalous, half-smallfolk children of a whore's bastard and a Dornish copper-counter.
No knights would touch us with a ten foot pole, and despite our four siblings, our house seemed doomed to fall back into obscurity within a few generations.
All until I found a little blue cube.
Sometimes, I can't even believe it happened, and that this is some feverish fantasy my younger mind is conjuring as I lie dying in that moldy cave. I mean, c'mon: the repository on a ancient sorcerer, from a civilization that dwarfs all of Westeros like Harrenhal dwarfs a grain of sand, just so happening to crash in the woods a few miles away from Lovecraft Village, right after I decide to take up the sword?
It truly must have been the will of the Force, for why else would such a vanishingly unlikely thing happen? Why else would I, the lowest of all possible lows while not a smallfolk, have been given the tools to set myself free of the burdens of my birth?
And truly, as much as Nadros hates me referencing the code of his people's ancient enemies, the Force did set me free. Ever since I learned how to listen to what the guardian called "the currents of the world", it's like a third eye opened up on my head, for how blind I'd been! No, not just a third, a fourth, a fifth eye!
I can see everything so much more clearly now: the rippling brook that runs through our home of Lovecraft Village is no longer just a place to wash clothes, it's now practically a Braavosi orchestra, a cacophony of a thousand different tunes somehow harmonizing, each tiny brook and stream bringing their own unique note to the choir. I've been practicing my meditation next to the banks for over a decade, my my magical senses have been honed to the point where, with enough concentration, I can trace a particular note all the way back to the pebble in the stream that spawned it.
The villagers are a bit amused by how eager I am to do nothing but sit by the banks of a river, but I like to think I make up for it with my prowess at finding their lost possessions. They've actually taken to calling me the "Good Lady Ash" thanks to all the lost coins I end up handing out to the town's children!
I just worry about any other of Nadros's people finding their way here. The thought of a fully trained Jedi or Sith in Westeros? Even with how warriors here re-enforce their bodies with the Force subconsciously, that's still a terrifying prospect.
Luckily, that doesn't seem likely.
According to the holocron, the ship Nadros was traveling in (and isn't that a thought, ships that travel through the heavens!) was caught in something called a "hyperspace storm", and was flung off far into regions unknown to his people. According to the holocron's guardian, the chance of any other ship arriving to this planet is about the same as the chance of myself finding a grain of sand in a haystack… in Ulthos, while blinded and lacking arms.
In other words, so infinitesimally small it's effectively impossible, even through the power of the Force.
But as interesting as tracking, meditation, and hidden lore can be, they haven't been the main sources of growth for me in the past decade and a half.
Out of all my siblings, I believe I (with the possible exception of my younger brother Durran) take after my father the most. Ever since the day I found Master Nadros's holocron, I threw myself into martial training with a fervor unmatched by even my father in his youth.
However, even with the holocron, I did not have an easy time learning the art of combat. In fact, I'd argue that the extra resources just made my task even harder, as it showed me just how far I had to go before I could even approach a level regarded as decent. There'd be no resting on my laurels for me, not after seeing the types of things the sorcerers of Nadros's homeland could do with a blade (most of which the holocron unfortunately contained no records of).
After badgering my father for months, he finally broke down and allowed me to learn the blade from him with Erryn. He initially didn't think I was a very good fit for his sword style-a bold, brash, and aggressive variant of traditional Stormlander sword forms he calls "the Whirling Storm"-and only taught me the basic Westerosi forms available to every hedge knight.
For most of my childhood I focused on perfecting these forms, more suited to my lithe figure, with the addition of some more agility-based forms that Great-Uncle Bonifer showed me from his time as a tourney knight in the Crownlands and Vale. I pushed myself brutally, relentlessly drilling a type of moving meditation that Nadros said he picked up from a group called the "Matukai" in between my lessons on the sword in an attempt to compensate for my willowy figure.
It was punishing, as even in my off days I could feel my bruises developing bruises, but I knew it was all worth it the first time I managed to arm wrestle a man three times my size and win. I may be tall and slender like a "proper beauty", but my dresses hide ripcord muscles reinforced with the Force that can punch with the strength of my strongest and broadest Durrandon ancestors.
At that point, I finally convinced my father to teach me his Whirling Storm style, as he'd almost entirely given up on making Erri into a warrior at that point.
That training was even more brutal than before; my father seeming to have the desire to use force to dissuade me from my "foolish dreams" of taking up the blade. After the ninth straight week of brutal non-stop training though, I think he finally realized that there was nothing he could do to break my will, and he started training me in earnest.
His style is a strong one, a fast one, and with my force-enhanced strikes I took to it like a fish to water.
Wait no, we're not Tullys. Took to it like a moth does to a forest? Eh, I'll work on it.
Anyways, after years of training, this year I finally reached the point where I can reliably beat Father using his own style, even when he's going all-out. He managed to hold out for a while thanks to his greater experience, but in the end, my strength, speed, and raw unrelenting skill proved too much for him. I may or may not have had my first taste of ale the first time I laid him flat on his ass.
And that doesn't even touch on what I've learned from my glorious blue cube.
The combat styles used by the men of Nadros's homeland are truly incredible, all honed by generation after generation of fighters to become the base of a truly fearsome, yet endlessly adjustable and personalizable, set of swordfighting styles.
Or sorry, lightsaber fighting styles, Nadros gets very insistent about that for some reason. Almost as prissy as it gets about calling magic "the force", like that somehow makes it less magical.
I found the perfect companions to my father's Whirling Storm style inside the holocron, and I ended up drilling the forms of Ataru, Juyo, and Djem So near-obsessively until I could practice them while sleepwalking. Djem So in particular seemed to be a perfect fit for me, with its absolutely unrelenting offence not taking away impressive defenses or maneuverability.
That's only helped along, of course, by my choice in weapons.
I have to admit, part of the reason I picked a greatsword as my weapon of choice was solely for the aesthetics: I may be well over six feet thank to the combination of Durrandon and Sarnori blood, but I'm still appealingly feminine and slender, and so a greatsword seems an almost comical weapon for someone of my size.
Indeed, the first time I picked up the near six-foot blade from the training racks I was the subject of ridicule from the servants of the castle, and a benign amusement on the part of my father. I didn't let that deter me though, and trained day and night to adapt my fighting style to the longer and heavier blade, until my force-enhanced strikes could propel the lengthy blade forward just as easily as they could a lighter bastard sword.
The laughing stopped quite abruptly the first time I out-dueled my father using a blade taller than most of the knights in the yard.
That's not to say I didn't train the other styles or weapons as well. I'm at least above-average with a range of diverse weapons, from the flail to the glaive, but I'm most proud of having achieved mastery in every single style of fighting recorded on the holocron, and adopting elements of each into my own personal swordfighting style.
Yes, while the more aggressive Forms IV, V, and VII may be my area of expertise along with the Whirling Storm Style, I'm confident I could defeat the vast majority of fighters in Westeros using any of the saber fighting styles in Nadros's holocron.
The wide, sweeping strikes of Shii-Cho combine with common Westerosi techniques for breaking levies and the characteristic whirling motions of my father's style to allow me to cut down smallfolk footmen like a scythe through grain; while the nimble and precise Makashi and Shien combine perfectly with the Crownlands styles preferred by Great-Uncle Bonifer, and bits of Water-Dancing that my Uncle Stevron managed bring back from his trip to Braavos.
The acrobatic spins and swipes of Ataru combine with the limb-cleaving attacks of the Whirling Storm and the unpredictability of Juyo to create a near-unbeatable onslaught of blades; while the absolute zone of protection of Soresu combined with the broader Westerosi style's mountain-like enduring defenses to create a barrier of steel that few can break.
In fact, my skills with the defensive styles, while not my main focus like the offensive ones, have grown so impressive that I can forego a shield entirely, solely relying on my acrobatic leaps and whirling blades to cut arrows out from the air in front of-
"Watch your head, Ash!"
I snap back to awareness of the present moment, only narrowly dodging a hammer-swipe from my opponent. I should know better than to get lost in my own head during combat. I raise up a hand, bringing the sparring match to an end, as I wipe away a string of coal-black hair stuck to my forehead with sweat.
"Good fight" I say to my younger brother Durran, as he moves to put up his training warhammer, "you almost had me there for a second."
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"Only because you lost focus" he says with a grin, rolling his eyes. "You don't have to sugar-coat it, I know you could beat me with your hands tied behind your back."
I cringe. He didn't think…
"Hey, relax!" he says with a laugh, "I'm not jealous! Well, I was a little at first, but I've learned to content myself with my own progress. I feel like anyone would when faced with a goddess of combat for an older sister."
I smile despite myself.
"Besides, I don't want to be a warrior forever. I want to earn my spurs like Dad did, and then settle down with a nice wife to continue the family name."
"Also" he says with a wink, "all those interesting techniques you've been teaching me certainly don't hurt"
I chuckle. Ataru forms synthesize surprisingly well into Westerosi warhammer combat, creating a truly unique style that leads to one leaping around like some sort of squirrel. Durran might not be on my level, but I'd give him even odds against any hedge knight in a tourney, and a chance to beat even some of the more skilled fighters if they weren't aware of the unconventionality of his style. .
"Settling down and continuing the family name?" I ask with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, "I think you're forgetting your place… little brother. Erri and I are the heirs, last time I checked."
He rolls his eyes. "Please. Even if Dad decided to piss off every Stormlord by using the Dornish laws of secession, you can't stay in one place to save your life, and you'd literally murder any man who tried to put a baby in you. And Erryn… well, I love Erri, but we both know he'd be a whole lot happier with a chain or a paintbrush than a lordship."
I give a reluctant snort of agreement.
"Really" he says, using a droll tone we both inherited from our mother, "I'd think you'd be thanking me, one of us has to be the normal one. This way Father still gets his heir, and you and Erri get to go gallivanting around on adventures, saving smallfolk and wooing noble ladies. We both know you'd tear your hair out if you actually had to be a normal heir."
"Oh, you're saying I'm abnormal? I'll have you know I could be the perfect noble lady if I so chose!"
The next second passes in silence before we both break out in laughter.
A few minutes later we part ways, and I approach the west wing of the castle, where, I can hear my younger (by two whole minutes!) twin brother Erryn practicing his lute, his voice as angelic as always.
I know singing and lute-playing (along with sewing, embroidery, reading, and poetry) aren't exactly the most masculine of hobbies, but then Erri has never been the most… masculine of men. Or boys, in this case. He was named after the founder of House Horpe a peerless warrior who was said to have threatened even the Durrandons, but… well, he's never really lived up to that reputation.
When I would be studying tactics, Erryn would be practicing his lute; when I'd be meditating on the riverbank, he's be sculpting wondrous art out of gold and steel, when I'd learn the sword from the Master at Arms, Erryn would be with the Maester, reading on science or mathematics.
That's not to say I let him get sloppy: with both Father and I in the family, he's had to get his swordfighting up to at least a satisfactory level for a hedge knight.
It was a struggle to get even that far though: if he could, Erryn would spend the entire day sewing, or singing, or cooped up inside the library researching whatever caught his fancy, only leaving for the occasional jaunt down to the village forge to partake in his only even remotely "masculine" hobby.
I know that when we were children we used to switch clothing so he could attend my sewing lessons in my place, and he must have read every book in there at least twice. I know for a fact that the dozen or so new tomes we get every year come directly from his allowance.
Lately, he's been especially interested in matters pertaining to history and cartography, much to Mother's dismay. She'd given up on me being anything but a "sword-swinging barbarian", but I know she'd held onto hope that one of her two eldest would follow her into the realm of trade and finance.
Alas though, it seems that while he's still a deft hand with accountancy (certainly more than I am), his true interests lie elsewhere.
It's a common refrain that I'm more a man than my brother is, and while I don't believe that, sometimes I wonder if the gods really did switch our sexes at birth. It would certainly fit with the little extra gift they left me, the one I've taken far too little care to conceal from the world. I blame my earlier, reckless years on sinking my marriage prospects, by making my situation an open secret within the lordship. After all, what man would want to marry a girl who's cock is bigger than theirs is?
Now, not to say my condition is unheard of! It's not exactly common, but it's not unheard of either. It's commonly thought that Tyanna of the Towers was… well, a "spear-maiden" as it they say, just like me.
That doesn't necessarily make it better though. After all, dwarfs aren't outside the scope of the Westerosi imagination, but that didn't stop the bards from japing about Tyrion Lannister from the moment he drew his first breath.
I've heard things are better in the North and Dorne though. The Rhoynish were said to have seen my condition as a sign of great spiritual blessings, and, as much as the Maesters and Septons would like people to forget, every peasant in the North knows that the "Bran" in "Bran the Burner" is actually short for "Branda".
I shake off my thoughts as I almost run into someone… Damnit. It seems my quest to find my cute younger twin is interrupted by the most unwelcome source: my sister.
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"Sister!" she says with a strained smile, eyeing my sweat-soaked form, "how was your… training?"
"Excellent!" I say, purposefully stretching my arms over my head to emphasize my chest, "but nothing I already knew. Durran's good, but I'm the knight of the family."
She makes a grimace at my display of flesh, averting her eyes with a slight flush, only to scowl at my second comment.
"Sister… you know you cannot become a knight."
I sigh. love Bella, but she really does need to get that stick out of her ass. "For the thousandth time, why not? I can outfight Father, and he's a good enough knight to get awarded his own lands, despite being a bastard."
"Our father's… status has nothing to do with this. It's just not done, plain and simple. The Maiden commands us to be-"
I roll my eyes. "I know you spend more time in the Sept than the Septon, but not everyone's that devout. If some man tries to turn me into a broodmare, I'm slitting his throat and running off to Essos to be a sellsword."
"S-Sister! I have said this time and time again: you are the eldest, that means you have responsibilities! There is a natural order to things, a way the Seven have laid out the world. Men bleed on the battlefield, and women bleed on the birthing bed! Your flouting of the Seven's desires for you-"
"I couldn't give two griffin shits what-"
"Right there! That-" she takes a moment to compose herself, and tamp down that fire I know she has inside her. "That… recklessness! It's ruining us, making our name less than dirt! Do you know what they say of us?"
"A laughing-stock?" I say dryly, my tone practically begging her to see sense, "They're jealous Belle. A Septa sees your or mother's beauty, and fears her own ugliness. A knight sees mine or father's martial prowess, and fears their own inadequacy. 'Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred', as a wise Maester once said."
"I… I don't know what Maesters you've been listening to, but that's just simply not true! You're the deluded one, Sister, if you think that anointed knights and septons are greedy and base cravens! You speak of jealousy, but you yourself envy men, with your attempts to be one! Don't think I don't know of those… perversions you partake in with the who- women at the tavern!"
I chuckle. "I'll have you know Macy is a perfectly respectable innkeeper, sister. And 'Perversions'? Have you been peeping, little sis?"
Her face goes red at that, and despite her presence in the force I can't tell if it's more from anger or shame. "I- No! Your visits have become so frequent that half of Lovecraft speaks of your disgusting habits!"
"Disgusting?" I ask, quirking an eyebrow, all the while shifting my stance in a dozen subtle ways to draw attention to my sweat-drenched form.
"So quick to judge, Belle. For one they call 'the Beautiful', you're so quick to swear off half the world's…" I run a hand up my side "beauty."
"That's… I… You-…." Ah, it's like listening to a Myrish clock with one of the gears taken out. Same old Bella, ever easy to tease.
"You've really never been curious?" I ask "We're half-Dornish, after all. Don't think I haven't seen you casting glances towards your handmaid… You've never 'practiced kissing', even as a joke?"
Disappointingly, a direct insinuation seems to be a bridge too far, and she forgets her own embarrassment in favor of a furious scowl. "You dare-… Jocelyn is my dearest friend, and you make-…"
She forcibly cuts herself off, taking a deep breath to gather her wits. "No. Enough of this. I will see you tomorrow, sister; I hope whatever fit of pique this is will pass by then."
And with nary a huff, she turns on her heel and storms (heh) off, presumably to seek the company of her handmaid and "dear friend", who I definitely haven't noticed noticed taking overly-long looks at my form when I come back from sparring.
Oh man, I cannot wait when that barrel of wildfire is eventually set alight…
My bemusement from my talk with Bella slowly decreases as I move through the keep, until I run into a much less irritating distraction.
"Ash! Ash!" my littlest sister yells, almost bumping into my legs in her haste to find me, "I finally managed to hit a target from across the keep! You were right, it's all about my breathing!
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I smile as I take her in. Named after my grandfather's mother, a perfect noble lady from house Wensington, Roslyn "Ros" couldn't be more different from her namesake. At 15 years old she's just begun flowering as a woman, and yet shows a deviousness and cunning that would make the most sly of mother's Dornish ancestors proud, couples with a combat affinity just as strong as Durran's.
"Can you give me some more archery lessons!" she asks, clinging on to me like a Sothyori lemur. I stare at her big eyes and trembling lip, unamused. That trick might work on Mother and Father, but I've long grown wise to just how devious the little hellion can be.
I love my sister, I really do, but she's just a bit too good at getting everyone to dance to her tune. By the time I grew wise to her tricks, she'd already coerced me out of more hours of archery practice than I can count, to the point where I was sharing Nadros's tips and tricks on meditation and focus to enhance her own minor force sensitivity into a full-on talent for aiming and precognition.
As a result, she's already one of the best archers I've ever heard of; she could probably hit an apple off the head of a running dog from across a courtyard, while riding on horseback and wearing a corset.
She's also taken to our mothers lessons on poisons and venoms with an almost disturbing intensity, quickly showing herself to be a prodigy in the art; and adopting and expanding upon the few minor force cloaking exercises Nadros showed me into an almost uncanny ability to blend into the background.
Combined with her sharp mind and social cunning, she'll be an absolute menace when she grows up, capable of ruling her husband's keep in all but name, and silently "taking care" of anyone that stands in her way from halfway across the castle. I swear, her husband is either going to end up as the luckiest or unluckiest man in the Stormlands.
However, my earlier conversation with Bella has given me an idea: despite all that she is still 15.
"You know" I say with a smile, staring down at her as clings on to my leg, "that puppy-eyed look is growing dangerously effective. You're going to be beating all the boys and girls off with a stick soon."
"Ash!" she shrieks delightedly, jumping off me, "don't say things like that! It's embarrassing…"
"What?" I say, raising my eyebrows, "you've flowered into a beautiful young woman, Ros, and I know I'm not the only one to notice. Or do you think Ser Alymer's nephew was staring at your chest because he's secretly a fan of your dress's embroidery?"
Ros huffs, trying to hide her blush in her hands.
"Oh?" I say, putting a hand to my mouth in fake shock, "is little Ros actually… embarrassed about something! Sound the alarm, we've found something that interests you other than archery and swords! Well, one type of sword, at least… Or maybe sheaths?"
She slaps my arm, face burning, "don't say things like that, you… I don't… I'm not… I don't even like any of that stuff! Shut up!"
I just laugh, ruffling her hair. "What? Do you think I don't notice these things? It's a big sister's prerogative to tease her little sister relentlessly, after all."
Finally, after a surprisingly long trek of the castle grounds, I hear the sound of a lute, and I hone in one the small shack right near the boundary of Lovecraft Village.
Erryn.