Lady of Iron
Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
Asha may not have had much to do with farming, much less mucking fields, but she could smell a pile of fresh shit when it was stuck right under her nose. 'Concerns of state about sharing anything about the journey' the king said, as though that was supposed to explain how, by the Drowned God's salty left nut, Old Wyk wouldn't be breaking up to drown her whole realm. She took a deep steadying breath, a habit she had picked up over the last few years, and stopped pacing.
Wouldn't do to argue with him now of all times.
I'll find out find out what kind of horror had been lairing beneath Nagga's Hill even if I have to get the bloody half-squid wizard to make me a new brain the rest of the squids couldn't listen in on, she vowed inwardly.
As though reading her mind, though really only her expression instead, her uncle gave her one of his piercing looks, the sort that used to give a certain girl who was in the habit of hiding in piles of old nets to get out to sea when her father would rather she do something ashore. "The king does have the right to keep you in the dark if he feels it is for the good of the realm... all the realm. It's not all being paid to fight and to sail in his name, or knock together the heads of lords who wouldn't take you seriously when you were younger."
"I know, I know..." The young captain sighed. "It's his island
more than it is mine because he's king, but it's my island
first if that makes sense. I should know what's down there."
Rodrik's expression turned grave. "I've known some who would rather be able to forget what they learned of such dark things."
Once Asha might have scoffed and claimed she was made of sterner stuff, but she had met the knight of Grey Garden and she knew he was anything but weak of mind, and yet he lamented not being able to drink to forget. "They will come for me when the war starts, they will come for us all before they ever touch the shore of Sorcerer's Deep..." she trailed off, then with an edge of gallows humor, added, "I hate to die with my chin dropped all the way like a Far Islander at the first sight of a real port."
"You are in a grim mood for a woman about to take on a Dukedom," her uncle said, pouring her another glass of Arbor Gold, compliments of Horas' family.
"Islands shouldn't bloody
break like a skiff in a storm," she said picking it up and draining it.
Even Rodrik, a man as famed for fair argument as the breadth of his reading, couldn't argue with that.
***
Twenty Second Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
When the lords of the Iron Islands laid eyes upon the daughter of Balon Greyjoy on the next morning, they saw in her no trace of the uncertainty, the fear or the anger that her uncle had glimpsed. Some of it was magic, the power of insight and foresight, the gift of gab borrowed from some ancient dragon, but some of it was just her, a woman who had sailed from the Shivering Sea to the Shores of Sothoryos, and from the familiar waters of Sorcerer's Deep to Yin and the gate of the Golden Empire. She was garbed in enchantments, glittering mail and sorcerous cloak, and at her side axes of dragon steel such as only the boldest and luckiest raiders had brought to these shores.
As Asha spoke of the wealth and power that could be had in the wake of the Dragon, of the glory to be garnered in wars under skies beyond their ancestors' imagination, it was as much with her very presence as with the words that passed her lips into the chili air.
No showman or mummer she, for all she had seen King Viserys at it enough times that she thought she could play the part at need. Instead, Asha spoke quietly with the unwavering conviction of what she had seen of the god of her girlhood and the things that were pulling its strings.
For Theon's sake, she couldn't speak of what their... of what
Damphair had done to him in the name of the Drowned God, but there were plenty of other stories awash in horror beyond the blood and death that Ironborn were used to hearing of. Deepsmen's tales of what it was to be really under the hand of the Drowned and those of scattered sailors like Halfhand who managed to keep body and mind together enough to turn their coat and live to make a better life.
"The Deep Ones don't want us to pay the Iron Price, they want us to pay the bloody
Flesh Price, because that is all we are to them!" she roared raising and axe to the sky. "I say we pay them with iron in their guts instead and keep the gold for ourselves!"
In the east the first rays of light began to break, some trick of sorcery and glamor-craft timed just right. "A new king I call to, a new God." Aife burst from the clouds in all her radiant power, flanked by sea drakes that had already been protecting the islands. "A new Way to chart! I call for Viserys King of the line of Aegon!"
What do you do for your part in the oathtaking?
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OOC: Asha is one of those rare characters where I actually found two pics of her one looking younger than the other. This was also really fun for me to write, a speech that is given in a different perspective than Viserys' polished tones, but still influenced by them. Hope you guys enjoy. Not yet edited.