Drabble: Left Behind
Title: Left Behind
Author: erolyn2
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: none. except Maege Mormont/awesomeness.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 438
Summary: Speculation as to how Longclaw ended up with Jeor at the wall, when Jorah must have left it on Bear Island after he fled. Maege just can’t bring herself to keep it…
Author’s Note: Wrote this in a flurry the other night. I meant to write Dacey fluff, but then...this happened.
Longclaw, the Mormont family’s ancestral sword, laid waiting in Maege’s hall, but she could not bring herself to touch it.
It had been theirs for generations, passed on from son to son, her brother’s sword and then her nephew’s. Truth be told, Maege had always envied her brother the blade. She fought as well as Jeor did, why should she not also wield Valyrian-forged steel?
I am Lady of Bear Island now, she thought, by rights it is mine. And yet Maege knew she would never take it. The very sight of it made her feel ill.
Should it go to Dacey, then? Her eldest daughter was now the heir to the island, but would she want it? No. The girl was only fifteen, just newly a woman grown, and she had loved Jorah like a brother. It would only hurt her more. Maege already dreaded telling her daughters that their cousin was gone, and was never like to return.
I could sell it. Valyrian steel was rare, and fetched a high price, and they were in dire need of money now that her nephew had spent it all on his highborn wife. Spent it all, and left her behind to sort out the ruins.
He had sold everything, even flesh-and-blood men, but not Longclaw.
Maege knew she would not sell it, either. Even a man as lost to honor as her nephew had become had not taken it with him when he fled. He had disgraced their family’s name, but at least he had left this one thing, one scrap of ancient pride for the Mormonts to hold onto.
Still, she could not keep it here. Not when it would always remind her and her girls of Jorah.
Unbidden, her thoughts went to the day the boy’s mother had died - how small he had been then, and how little he had understood. Though she was nearly as close to her nephew’s age as her brother’s, Maege had to admit that she had often thought of the boy as a son, and she was certainly the only mother he remembered. How could he do this to me? To us?
No. She would not think on that. She had her girls to think of, and something must be done about the damned sword.
Jeor, she thought, my brother will know what to do with it. Longclaw had been his once, and could be again.
And she had to send him news of his son eventually.
With a sigh, Maege told one of the few remaining household servants to wrap up the blade, and went to fetch paper and ink.