Flashback scene - Ser Arstan returns to Starfall

[ihateseagulls]

Random flashback scene.

Ser Arstan: ME (degausser on Fan Forum)
Lady Asheria: Sofia (MovieManiac on Fan Forum)

Comments

[ihateseagulls]

Asheria Dayne
Asheria had to smile but she turned her head so he wouldn't see. Every man makes mistakes. Some bigger than others. But it took honor and bravery to be honest and deal with the consequences. She was glad to see that those qualities weren't lost to the Knight. Now believed that she could forgive him one day. "Send my dear handmaidens in again. I believe the stories that will now be told will be pleasant enough for them as well." She said.

For the rest of the dinner she asked him other questions about what the people in King's Landing were like and the Tourney's in which he participated. In turn she and Maester Edmin talked of the things that happened in Starfall after he left. Near to the end of the dinner the topic went to her father's sickness and his death. It was then when she began to drink from her cup of wine. When they were all full she thanked her servants before she stood up.

"I've promised you to take you were my father's bones rest after dinner. Come." She said with a sigh. It wasn't often that she went to that part of the castle. Her father's body was burned on the sea but his bones were brought there. Were most of her ancestors rested.

[ihateseagulls]

Ser Arstan Estermont
Much to his relief, Lady Asheria called her hand maidens back and the dinner conversation changed to a much more favorable subject. Arstan spoke of his initial thoughts of King’s Landing. He remembered the smell quite vividly. It smelled of rotting cheese and horse piss (he got a gasp out of one of the handmaidens with that one. The city sat on a harbor and so there was a perpetual ocean breeze that kept the city cooler than what he had normally been used to. He recounted the King and his royal family … and the many oddities he had experienced with Prince Aegon and Princess Alysanne. He was far more interested in what Lady Asheria had to say. She spoke first of her father and later of herself now that she had inherited Starfall. She would always speak of the illness that took the late Lord Dayne and the funeral rites that were performed for him. Arstan smiled sadly to himself. It seemed Lord Dayne had led a mostly happy life and he could see much of him in his daughter now. He raised her well.

Arstan never allowed himself to be fully comfortable with her and refrained from drinking any more wine that evening. When she dismissed her servants again and bade him to follow her, he did so in silence.

He had only been taken down to the crypts of Starfall once when he was very young. At the time they had scared him, perhaps because he felt he did not belong there. His feelings had not changed much, except now it was the Lady Asheria leading him underground instead of his father. Asheria took the lead with Arstan following behind. He held the torch high above both their heads to help lend some light to the dark. They passed the tombs of several known and lesser known Daynes. When they finally stopped at her father’s tomb he felt an immense wave of sadness wash over him. Arstan hesitated to reach for the marble that had been carved into the likeness of Lord Dayne. When his fingertips touched where the Lord Dayne’s face would have been, the marble felt strange and cold beneath his touch.

“I should have come sooner,” he spoke out loud to no one and everyone all at the same time. The face before him, despite its incredible likeness, could not substitute for the man he and the Lady Asheria lost. His eyes started to burn as his vision blurred, but Arstan would not allow a single drop to fall in front of Lady Dayne. Instead, he blinked back the moisture and adopted a most solemn expression. “I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m here now.”

[ihateseagulls]

Asheria Dayne
They walked in silence. She walked past several of her ancestors. Some she knew when they were still alive but the most only from stories. Once they arrived at Lord Edren Dayne's grave the silence between them seemed to grow even quite. She wasn't sure if Arstan spoke to her or her father. She eyes his actions curiously and was surprised for the second time this evening when she saw tears in his eyes though he did not let them fall. It was uncommon for men to cry. One of the only exceptions being when they grieved their father. She supposed he still though of her Lord father as one.

She kept looking at him for a moment longer before she sighed deeply. The woman bowed her head and closed her eyes when she quietly spoke a prayer to the seven. When she was done she was close to tears as well. I will not weep. She told herself. "Why didn't you?" She asked the knight. "Why didn't you come here sooner?" She clarified the question with a hushed voice. Before she thought he had forgotten about him, now she could tell that he clearly did not. "Six moons have passed since you left King's Landing. You could have made it here in less than one."

[ihateseagulls]

Ser Arstan Estermont
The Lady Asheria spoke the words but it was as if they came straight from Lord Edren himself. Ser Arstan had a hard time forming a response. He thought back to King’s Landing and the woman he had shamed himself for. He thought back on her blonde hair and her fair skin and her sweet smile; he remembered at the time of their affair thinking she smiled for him and only him. It was the first time he had ever been in love, at least that’s what he thought it was at the time. Although he took no pleasure from being dismissed from the King’s side, there was a silver lining in the situation. He might have been able to take the woman for his wife. It would not have been easy, but Ser Arstan once heard that love conquered all things.

Arstan later found this to be a falsity, and it was a lesson learned hard. The Lady did not wait for him. She married another man and left Arstan completely and utterly heartbroken. He was left a soiled Knight. He saw after the fact the fool he had been. He realized he had been weak in letting himself be tempted by the desires of the flesh. He took his newfound freedom and decided to exploit it as he felt he had been exploited. He traveled aimlessly along the King’s Road, stopping here and there at various Inns along the wayside. He drowned himself in wine and women and blamed everyone for his misfortunes but the one person who was actually responsible.

It took Arstan a while to realize he had brought it all upon himself.

“The state I found myself in was not one fitting to be viewed by the eyes of this House or the new Lady running it,” he responded after some time had passed. He spoke the words to Lady Dayne, but he stared into the cold marble eyes of Lord Edren. In life, Edren had been an honorable man, one of the most honorable of men Arstan had ever met. He might have understood the circumstances leading up to Arstan’s dismissal, but he would not have stood for watching his foster son’s downward spiral in the aftermath. “I needed to clean myself up, my Lady. I needed to remind myself of the man I used to be. The man your father raised me to be. I have not been that man for quite some time,” he admittedly quietly. “I am trying to be that man once more.”