Asha Greyjoy/Qarl the Maid, 50 sentences pairing
Title: has been revised to 'Lol I Don't Like This One Anymore' (though I still adore the pairing.)
Pairing: Asha/Qarl, mention of Tristifer Botley, Theon, assorted Greyjoys
Rating: R through to NC-17
Warning: Spoilers for 'A Dance With Dragons', general ASOIAF related wrong.
#01 - Motion
While they are waiting to depart from Harlaw, he opens his palm to show her a handful of flat pebbles he collected from the Stony Shore chest, to remind her that they tried; she measures the contest in widening ripples as they skip them all into the strangely calm sea.
#02 - Cool
He looks up to his older brothers in a way Asha never did hers, yet when one of them enters the service of the Drowned God, he makes a jape of it, maybe because he thought there was an embarrassment to not dying in battle, and Qarl wants to put off his own enjoyment of the God's hospitality for as long as possible.
#03 - Young
Tris is better than he is, stating his case with restraint even if it's difficult- “I've known her for longer, she was mine for a while, and might be again,”- Qarl thinks yes but you're wrong about everything else, replying he's displayed the patience he needs to win her over, at least.
#04 - Last
“Asha,” he says warningly, on knowing she's prepared to pledge herself to Victarion as a hand, “don't, he's going to fuck you for offering even if he does agree,” but she dismisses him as insincere because she can't remember the last time Qarl was the voice of reason.
#05 - Wrong
He's probably the only person of her acquaintance who would find it enticing that she tried to seduce her brother for sport, favouring the more intimate aspects of the story- when she reaches the part where she unlaced Theon's breeches he is sniggering, biting his lip with the backwards allure of it and afterwards his eyes widen as she re-enacts it all on him.
#06 - Gentle
Her back is against the wall as he fingers her slit, rough and not doing near enough to cause her pleasure she doesn't have to work for; Asha tries not to let him see how much more she needs, to hide it by spitting out insults- she wouldn't have wanted it any other way, to begin with.
#07 - One
He doesn't like to dwell on the things that vex him and cause him to lash out, or curse his own folly, but there is no avoiding the fact that one day he'll have to give her up to some high-born lord who won't deserve her at all (except perhaps if they were Tristifer).
#08 - Thousand
The night air is bitterly cold as he drags her out on deck to look at the stars together, spread across the clear sky, then reflected in the water, twice the number there are on the chart.
#09 - King
“Fuck Crow's Eye,” he growls, so outraged on her behalf that it does something towards extinguishing the humiliation, “he can keep this pile of backwater rocks, for all I care.”
#10 - Learn
It felt like the flat of his practice blade knocked her sideways into next winter, blunt and unforgiving across her ribs, yet she cherishes the impressive bruise even as it fades to a dull purple blotch- years pass, and she acquiesces to getting less enamoured with finger-marked thighs, ground-down wrists, gnawed-at shoulder bones.
#11 - Blur
Qarl's eyes are mostly opaque, she thinks grey like slate, maybe dark blue like a storm brewing, though she can't always be sure; his hair is neither dirt blond nor mouse brown, and some might find the murkiness unnerving but Asha likes it in him, the lack of clarity, despite the fact he finds it hard to lie to her.
#12 - Wait
She relates tales she hears of the north where her brother is being held, green land romances about lovers closer matched than they are yet separated by circumstance, conscious they may make Qarl angry, lead to him fucking his frustration out on her because she is there with him, and he can.
#13 - Change
When men start calling him the Maid, the idea appeals to her in all sorts of ways, least among them the contrast with how he is growing out of boyhood insecurities and into their expectations.
#14 - Command
A thrall crosses towards him on the walk to say that lady Asha has no desire to see him this evening, and Qarl rankles that she couldn't even come to tell him herself, that she sent a servant to do her dirty work; he crushes a feather he kept from her raven under his fist, knowing it's an added slight at his expense.
#15 - Hold
“Swear then,” she repeats, ignoring his protests that she should be certain his life is hers by now, and though the oath comes across sulkier than she would have liked, it's worth it to have his steel trapped underneath her boot, his pride exposed as a fragile barrier when it comes to pleasing her.
#16 - Need
She doesn't take him to Winterfell, justifying herself hurriedly as she's preparing to leave, some horseshit like “I need you here- my darling brother has a strange way of seeking to prove himself, and if I don't bring him back with me, at least you're not being wasted on slaking some personal thirst for revenge against the Starks.”
#17 - Vision
She is no longer right behind him and though he hears her triumphant scream ringing clear occasionally, he can't even see her anymore- the sweat is in his eyelashes now, sticking his hair to his unprotected forehead but he forces himself to focus on the green-smeared snake circling him, already relishing the prospect of spitting on the corpse.
#18 - Attention
Even being well aware his given name is commonplace on the isles, the other one people use to refer to him chafes more than a fraction- his persistence with Asha is eventually rewarded by her admitting she would have noticed him anyway.
#19 - Soul
Asha nearly always remains awake while Qarl falls into the sleep of the dead, and though they're surrounded by the rustling of all those damned leaves it's as if she can hear the sound of waves dragging in his gentle breath, longship drums in his rhythmic pulse, echoing into her own uneasy dreams.
#20 - Picture
Qarl is ignorant of mainland customs, not having gone further than the coast in a lot of places; the northern forests are endless, most folk have never seen a peach here either and he pictures Asha's sloe-dark eyes offering him the first taste of her, even though back then, he assumed he was nothing more than a temporary amusement.
#21 - Fool
He has to leave the room after Asha and Tris start laughing over a shared memory, wanting to head straight to the stables and lame his lord's horse for it, either that or hack something, someone, to pieces; later Asha wraps her arms around him, saying “Don't be jealous, it was all over long ago,” winding much too close although he's still upset, still has his knife clasped tight in his hand.
#22 - Mad
She asks Qarl what scares him, and when he replies that her uncle does, the fear going so deep he's glad he wasn't thought worth a reprisal, Asha doesn't have to get him to identify which one, but strengthens the promises she made after Tris's father, Blacktyde and the Nightflyer, that she will never let Euron touch or take away anything that is hers.
#23 - Child
“There's no danger of you planting any unwanted consequences with that disgusting prick of yours, this way,” she crows, sliding into him; his incoherent retort falters experiencing the edge of her fake sex made wet with his own mouth, thinking she must be a witch like his brother said to trick him into this and it will hurt him worse if he resists, at the same time he realizes he likes it.
#24 - Now
All the warning she gives is a wicked grin and a crook of her finger to Tris, mouthing they have to do this now, before she is gone from his side, striding up to the hall made of bone and Qarl draws his sword, shaking off the misgiving that at times like this, he can see the rash opportunism of Theon in her.
#25 - Shadow
Perhaps it was just a passing fancy that some of the women he bedded after having Asha were a pale imitation, thwarting all his attempts not to compare them, and if it might have been because he sought out the ones with wry smiles, playful faces and black hair, that was no fault of his own.
#26 - Goodbye
He shakes his head as Asha explains she lowered herself to the Baratheon for their lives and cuts her off saying, “you stupid bitch,” still convinced they'll all be slaughtered the moment she's gone.
#27 - Hide
She screams at him, working herself into a frenzy that he dares to jest about her being wedded without her presence or consent- further on, she realizes it's the shame of running away from her fate that burns the most.
#28 - Fortune
Despite the kindness of the lady's offer, Asha cannot accept, partly because of her own selfishness denying Tristifer his freedom (there would be no joy in returning home, for her), and partly because there is no one among Qarl's relations that could pay for him, some others that would consider it a blessing to have a potential threat negated.
#29 - Safe
After Tris brings him to her, he shudders into her embrace, burrowing a shockingly cold nose into her neck; she wishes she could give him more warmth, though she has to ask if he walked through snow drifts all this way or conceded to share Tris's horse at some point, and manages to draw out a half-hearted sneer.
#30 - Ghost
She finds herself thinking about the last time she saw Theon (younger, made delicate and yet thinks with his cock instead of his brains, so out of his depth, would sooner drown than let her help him) describing it like he's still alive; Qarl turns grave in the matter of a heartbeat and murmurs softly, “your brothers are all gone, lady”.
#31 - Book
He nods cursorily at the books she borrowed from the Reader, feigning interest in the roster of male names so he can bed her quicker; when he is gone, Asha looks down at her body, using one arm to flatten her sore breasts and curling a fist on her sticky crotch, then bucks up imagining it salt sweet, what it must be like thrusting deep into a maid, taking her again and again.
#32 - Eye
“You have no eye for a good woman, one who would count herself fortunate to feed you and mother your children,” Skyte laughs, and Qarl knocks his brother's cup over before he can so much as blink, ale flowing out piss-coloured when Qarl would rather it was blood from a finger dance that ended in his favour.
#33 - Never
Inside, she is raging at the wretched shape her brother has been left in, and grudgingly touched by Qarl because it looks like he might have risked the frost eating him raw, but she didn't know she was still hoping for them both to return to her; Asha wraps her hands around herself like a child in need of comfort and mutters, “what is dead may never die...”
#34 - Sing
It's a testament to how much mead is inside him that he slurs to her he is about to get up from the bench and declare his love in front of her father and all his lords, savouring the panic as she drags him back down, hissing “you've drunk more than enough tonight, fuzzjaw.”
#35 - Sudden
Asha is in a foul mood, snarling remarks about how the northmen are animals that turn on each other at any opportunity; Qarl breaks it by making her laugh some at holding her to the floor sniffing at her crotch, nipping her clothed mound in an impersonation of a tame wolf, and some at the hypocrisy because he followed her up here like a loyal dog, albeit one with a fierce bite.
#36 - Stop
The regretful expression Asha wears after visiting the lady with news of her children is not incongruous on her, but when she tells him she thinks so much of their resilience it's a pleasure to show them courtesy, he snorts “you aren't getting anywhere by it,”- she pushes his hands away as he reaches for her, mood changing in an instant, and says, “neither are you, with this.”
#37 - Time
Days stretch out so slow in the Glover dungeon, he just wants to silence Cromm's moaning with a sword that was taken away from him, to kill Tris with his bare hands for bleating over and over “we have to do something”, and never specifying what exactly could serve Asha now.
#38 - Wash
Asha delights in the assertion that Aly is not married to any man, that her whelps are instead sired by a bear, an unclean creature from the woods; she thinks to Qarl and how he never appeared very clean either, how they used to wash themselves by the tide, but if it didn't signify then it certainly doesn't matter anymore- it's like she will not see him again.
#39 - Torn
Too early one morning he rises to find her gone, makes his way onto the walls with his stomach grumbling and his wispy cheeks stinging from the icy wind; she is fully dressed yet still shivering, looking out over the forest, and the twist in her mouth says everything, so he puts off reminding her this is no place for them, for the present.
#40 - History
“What makes you think they'll accept you?” He jeers in the middle of a particularly vicious argument which she ends up winning, “There has never been a woman on the Seastone chair, let alone a skinny little girl who used to play with dolls.”
#41 - Power
He refuses to apologize for that one so she pulls on the ropes at his wrists, checking they're tight enough but not cutting into him, and only then shows him the heft of her newest possession (“this is the sort of toy I favour, now”); he swallows dry before clenching his jaw, confident he can take whatever punishment she wants him to balk at- it's nothing to him by this time.
#42 - Bother
Vanity is not one of Asha's flaws and she's kept her hair short since she was old enough to make her own decisions about those things, cutting it back whenever it threatens to spill over her shoulders; Qarl let her knife out the knots in his lengthening mess once, since he couldn't be bothered to unpick them himself, and she'd taken pleasure in making the experience as painful as possible, admiring the salt-gritted tangles as they fell into her lap.
#43 - God
Rain lashes at her face as the sea churns beneath the boards and the others grumble this epitomizes their luck, though Qarl is next to her, sarcasm harsh in her ear, “The Storm God is angry Asha, he wants you more than I do for the moment”; Asha closes her eyes and feels the hum of oncoming thunder in her bones, exchanges the thought of her father falling for an image of herself sprawled atop that black throne, head decorated with the driftwood crown.
#44 - Wall
The sheer insolence of him shocks her sometimes, much as she enjoys it, the way he stares at her breasts, slaps her arse, leers insinuations at her as if she's not the potential heir to a kingdom- Asha pinches the bridge of her nose, thinking she only stands for it because she could have him drowned, if she chose to.
#45 - Naked
It disturbs him that he has no scars, nothing to show for moons of reaving, sustaining a fair share of pain he seems to have absorbed into his skin- she teases him that it is soft as his namesake's, or a changeling's maybe, and he wishes desperately she wouldn't say things like that.
#46 - Drive
“Green landers ride horses in their tournaments,” She informs him, only for Qarl to shrug in response and say it's not enough of an incentive for him to consider learning to control one of those beasts, if she didn't trust him to get her mare ready and the sight of her on it didn't stir him half hard, he wouldn't go near them at all.
#47 - Harm
The southron men mock him for his youthful, unassuming look and his allegiance to a woman; Qarl isn't able to prove anything shackled and bleeding in a dozen places, so much blood from such shallow wounds that won't even leave any trace.
#48 - Precious
Asha finds it jarring to see him wearing the ugly rings of dead men because his grandfather was enthralled for the iron price, but he is ironborn, he voluntarily belongs to the salt and rock, though his appearance does not reflect that, does not conjure up much besides slate and sand.
#49 - Hunger
She is slouched sourly on her father's dais until she glances up and catches sight of him seated at a crowded table, openly watching; she frowns at him but he just makes a crass gesture with two fingers from the full set he's so proud of and his wine-stained tongue (having finally acquired a taste for it, aswell as what he's implying), and she is filled with an ache in her belly that has nothing to do with the picked-at food in front of her.
#50 - Believe
Perhaps the reason she kept him around all these years has changed- he's lost part of that laconic nature she was attracted to in the beginning, replacing it with careworn gazes and a fervent kind of hope; Asha has no choice in kissing him to stop him looking at her like that, as if she truly is his queen, and she didn't fail in so many places.
Pairing: Asha/Qarl, mention of Tristifer Botley, Theon, assorted Greyjoys
Rating: R through to NC-17
Warning: Spoilers for 'A Dance With Dragons', general ASOIAF related wrong.
#01 - Motion
While they are waiting to depart from Harlaw, he opens his palm to show her a handful of flat pebbles he collected from the Stony Shore chest, to remind her that they tried; she measures the contest in widening ripples as they skip them all into the strangely calm sea.
#02 - Cool
He looks up to his older brothers in a way Asha never did hers, yet when one of them enters the service of the Drowned God, he makes a jape of it, maybe because he thought there was an embarrassment to not dying in battle, and Qarl wants to put off his own enjoyment of the God's hospitality for as long as possible.
#03 - Young
Tris is better than he is, stating his case with restraint even if it's difficult- “I've known her for longer, she was mine for a while, and might be again,”- Qarl thinks yes but you're wrong about everything else, replying he's displayed the patience he needs to win her over, at least.
#04 - Last
“Asha,” he says warningly, on knowing she's prepared to pledge herself to Victarion as a hand, “don't, he's going to fuck you for offering even if he does agree,” but she dismisses him as insincere because she can't remember the last time Qarl was the voice of reason.
#05 - Wrong
He's probably the only person of her acquaintance who would find it enticing that she tried to seduce her brother for sport, favouring the more intimate aspects of the story- when she reaches the part where she unlaced Theon's breeches he is sniggering, biting his lip with the backwards allure of it and afterwards his eyes widen as she re-enacts it all on him.
#06 - Gentle
Her back is against the wall as he fingers her slit, rough and not doing near enough to cause her pleasure she doesn't have to work for; Asha tries not to let him see how much more she needs, to hide it by spitting out insults- she wouldn't have wanted it any other way, to begin with.
#07 - One
He doesn't like to dwell on the things that vex him and cause him to lash out, or curse his own folly, but there is no avoiding the fact that one day he'll have to give her up to some high-born lord who won't deserve her at all (except perhaps if they were Tristifer).
#08 - Thousand
The night air is bitterly cold as he drags her out on deck to look at the stars together, spread across the clear sky, then reflected in the water, twice the number there are on the chart.
#09 - King
“Fuck Crow's Eye,” he growls, so outraged on her behalf that it does something towards extinguishing the humiliation, “he can keep this pile of backwater rocks, for all I care.”
#10 - Learn
It felt like the flat of his practice blade knocked her sideways into next winter, blunt and unforgiving across her ribs, yet she cherishes the impressive bruise even as it fades to a dull purple blotch- years pass, and she acquiesces to getting less enamoured with finger-marked thighs, ground-down wrists, gnawed-at shoulder bones.
#11 - Blur
Qarl's eyes are mostly opaque, she thinks grey like slate, maybe dark blue like a storm brewing, though she can't always be sure; his hair is neither dirt blond nor mouse brown, and some might find the murkiness unnerving but Asha likes it in him, the lack of clarity, despite the fact he finds it hard to lie to her.
#12 - Wait
She relates tales she hears of the north where her brother is being held, green land romances about lovers closer matched than they are yet separated by circumstance, conscious they may make Qarl angry, lead to him fucking his frustration out on her because she is there with him, and he can.
#13 - Change
When men start calling him the Maid, the idea appeals to her in all sorts of ways, least among them the contrast with how he is growing out of boyhood insecurities and into their expectations.
#14 - Command
A thrall crosses towards him on the walk to say that lady Asha has no desire to see him this evening, and Qarl rankles that she couldn't even come to tell him herself, that she sent a servant to do her dirty work; he crushes a feather he kept from her raven under his fist, knowing it's an added slight at his expense.
#15 - Hold
“Swear then,” she repeats, ignoring his protests that she should be certain his life is hers by now, and though the oath comes across sulkier than she would have liked, it's worth it to have his steel trapped underneath her boot, his pride exposed as a fragile barrier when it comes to pleasing her.
#16 - Need
She doesn't take him to Winterfell, justifying herself hurriedly as she's preparing to leave, some horseshit like “I need you here- my darling brother has a strange way of seeking to prove himself, and if I don't bring him back with me, at least you're not being wasted on slaking some personal thirst for revenge against the Starks.”
#17 - Vision
She is no longer right behind him and though he hears her triumphant scream ringing clear occasionally, he can't even see her anymore- the sweat is in his eyelashes now, sticking his hair to his unprotected forehead but he forces himself to focus on the green-smeared snake circling him, already relishing the prospect of spitting on the corpse.
#18 - Attention
Even being well aware his given name is commonplace on the isles, the other one people use to refer to him chafes more than a fraction- his persistence with Asha is eventually rewarded by her admitting she would have noticed him anyway.
#19 - Soul
Asha nearly always remains awake while Qarl falls into the sleep of the dead, and though they're surrounded by the rustling of all those damned leaves it's as if she can hear the sound of waves dragging in his gentle breath, longship drums in his rhythmic pulse, echoing into her own uneasy dreams.
#20 - Picture
Qarl is ignorant of mainland customs, not having gone further than the coast in a lot of places; the northern forests are endless, most folk have never seen a peach here either and he pictures Asha's sloe-dark eyes offering him the first taste of her, even though back then, he assumed he was nothing more than a temporary amusement.
#21 - Fool
He has to leave the room after Asha and Tris start laughing over a shared memory, wanting to head straight to the stables and lame his lord's horse for it, either that or hack something, someone, to pieces; later Asha wraps her arms around him, saying “Don't be jealous, it was all over long ago,” winding much too close although he's still upset, still has his knife clasped tight in his hand.
#22 - Mad
She asks Qarl what scares him, and when he replies that her uncle does, the fear going so deep he's glad he wasn't thought worth a reprisal, Asha doesn't have to get him to identify which one, but strengthens the promises she made after Tris's father, Blacktyde and the Nightflyer, that she will never let Euron touch or take away anything that is hers.
#23 - Child
“There's no danger of you planting any unwanted consequences with that disgusting prick of yours, this way,” she crows, sliding into him; his incoherent retort falters experiencing the edge of her fake sex made wet with his own mouth, thinking she must be a witch like his brother said to trick him into this and it will hurt him worse if he resists, at the same time he realizes he likes it.
#24 - Now
All the warning she gives is a wicked grin and a crook of her finger to Tris, mouthing they have to do this now, before she is gone from his side, striding up to the hall made of bone and Qarl draws his sword, shaking off the misgiving that at times like this, he can see the rash opportunism of Theon in her.
#25 - Shadow
Perhaps it was just a passing fancy that some of the women he bedded after having Asha were a pale imitation, thwarting all his attempts not to compare them, and if it might have been because he sought out the ones with wry smiles, playful faces and black hair, that was no fault of his own.
#26 - Goodbye
He shakes his head as Asha explains she lowered herself to the Baratheon for their lives and cuts her off saying, “you stupid bitch,” still convinced they'll all be slaughtered the moment she's gone.
#27 - Hide
She screams at him, working herself into a frenzy that he dares to jest about her being wedded without her presence or consent- further on, she realizes it's the shame of running away from her fate that burns the most.
#28 - Fortune
Despite the kindness of the lady's offer, Asha cannot accept, partly because of her own selfishness denying Tristifer his freedom (there would be no joy in returning home, for her), and partly because there is no one among Qarl's relations that could pay for him, some others that would consider it a blessing to have a potential threat negated.
#29 - Safe
After Tris brings him to her, he shudders into her embrace, burrowing a shockingly cold nose into her neck; she wishes she could give him more warmth, though she has to ask if he walked through snow drifts all this way or conceded to share Tris's horse at some point, and manages to draw out a half-hearted sneer.
#30 - Ghost
She finds herself thinking about the last time she saw Theon (younger, made delicate and yet thinks with his cock instead of his brains, so out of his depth, would sooner drown than let her help him) describing it like he's still alive; Qarl turns grave in the matter of a heartbeat and murmurs softly, “your brothers are all gone, lady”.
#31 - Book
He nods cursorily at the books she borrowed from the Reader, feigning interest in the roster of male names so he can bed her quicker; when he is gone, Asha looks down at her body, using one arm to flatten her sore breasts and curling a fist on her sticky crotch, then bucks up imagining it salt sweet, what it must be like thrusting deep into a maid, taking her again and again.
#32 - Eye
“You have no eye for a good woman, one who would count herself fortunate to feed you and mother your children,” Skyte laughs, and Qarl knocks his brother's cup over before he can so much as blink, ale flowing out piss-coloured when Qarl would rather it was blood from a finger dance that ended in his favour.
#33 - Never
Inside, she is raging at the wretched shape her brother has been left in, and grudgingly touched by Qarl because it looks like he might have risked the frost eating him raw, but she didn't know she was still hoping for them both to return to her; Asha wraps her hands around herself like a child in need of comfort and mutters, “what is dead may never die...”
#34 - Sing
It's a testament to how much mead is inside him that he slurs to her he is about to get up from the bench and declare his love in front of her father and all his lords, savouring the panic as she drags him back down, hissing “you've drunk more than enough tonight, fuzzjaw.”
#35 - Sudden
Asha is in a foul mood, snarling remarks about how the northmen are animals that turn on each other at any opportunity; Qarl breaks it by making her laugh some at holding her to the floor sniffing at her crotch, nipping her clothed mound in an impersonation of a tame wolf, and some at the hypocrisy because he followed her up here like a loyal dog, albeit one with a fierce bite.
#36 - Stop
The regretful expression Asha wears after visiting the lady with news of her children is not incongruous on her, but when she tells him she thinks so much of their resilience it's a pleasure to show them courtesy, he snorts “you aren't getting anywhere by it,”- she pushes his hands away as he reaches for her, mood changing in an instant, and says, “neither are you, with this.”
#37 - Time
Days stretch out so slow in the Glover dungeon, he just wants to silence Cromm's moaning with a sword that was taken away from him, to kill Tris with his bare hands for bleating over and over “we have to do something”, and never specifying what exactly could serve Asha now.
#38 - Wash
Asha delights in the assertion that Aly is not married to any man, that her whelps are instead sired by a bear, an unclean creature from the woods; she thinks to Qarl and how he never appeared very clean either, how they used to wash themselves by the tide, but if it didn't signify then it certainly doesn't matter anymore- it's like she will not see him again.
#39 - Torn
Too early one morning he rises to find her gone, makes his way onto the walls with his stomach grumbling and his wispy cheeks stinging from the icy wind; she is fully dressed yet still shivering, looking out over the forest, and the twist in her mouth says everything, so he puts off reminding her this is no place for them, for the present.
#40 - History
“What makes you think they'll accept you?” He jeers in the middle of a particularly vicious argument which she ends up winning, “There has never been a woman on the Seastone chair, let alone a skinny little girl who used to play with dolls.”
#41 - Power
He refuses to apologize for that one so she pulls on the ropes at his wrists, checking they're tight enough but not cutting into him, and only then shows him the heft of her newest possession (“this is the sort of toy I favour, now”); he swallows dry before clenching his jaw, confident he can take whatever punishment she wants him to balk at- it's nothing to him by this time.
#42 - Bother
Vanity is not one of Asha's flaws and she's kept her hair short since she was old enough to make her own decisions about those things, cutting it back whenever it threatens to spill over her shoulders; Qarl let her knife out the knots in his lengthening mess once, since he couldn't be bothered to unpick them himself, and she'd taken pleasure in making the experience as painful as possible, admiring the salt-gritted tangles as they fell into her lap.
#43 - God
Rain lashes at her face as the sea churns beneath the boards and the others grumble this epitomizes their luck, though Qarl is next to her, sarcasm harsh in her ear, “The Storm God is angry Asha, he wants you more than I do for the moment”; Asha closes her eyes and feels the hum of oncoming thunder in her bones, exchanges the thought of her father falling for an image of herself sprawled atop that black throne, head decorated with the driftwood crown.
#44 - Wall
The sheer insolence of him shocks her sometimes, much as she enjoys it, the way he stares at her breasts, slaps her arse, leers insinuations at her as if she's not the potential heir to a kingdom- Asha pinches the bridge of her nose, thinking she only stands for it because she could have him drowned, if she chose to.
#45 - Naked
It disturbs him that he has no scars, nothing to show for moons of reaving, sustaining a fair share of pain he seems to have absorbed into his skin- she teases him that it is soft as his namesake's, or a changeling's maybe, and he wishes desperately she wouldn't say things like that.
#46 - Drive
“Green landers ride horses in their tournaments,” She informs him, only for Qarl to shrug in response and say it's not enough of an incentive for him to consider learning to control one of those beasts, if she didn't trust him to get her mare ready and the sight of her on it didn't stir him half hard, he wouldn't go near them at all.
#47 - Harm
The southron men mock him for his youthful, unassuming look and his allegiance to a woman; Qarl isn't able to prove anything shackled and bleeding in a dozen places, so much blood from such shallow wounds that won't even leave any trace.
#48 - Precious
Asha finds it jarring to see him wearing the ugly rings of dead men because his grandfather was enthralled for the iron price, but he is ironborn, he voluntarily belongs to the salt and rock, though his appearance does not reflect that, does not conjure up much besides slate and sand.
#49 - Hunger
She is slouched sourly on her father's dais until she glances up and catches sight of him seated at a crowded table, openly watching; she frowns at him but he just makes a crass gesture with two fingers from the full set he's so proud of and his wine-stained tongue (having finally acquired a taste for it, aswell as what he's implying), and she is filled with an ache in her belly that has nothing to do with the picked-at food in front of her.
#50 - Believe
Perhaps the reason she kept him around all these years has changed- he's lost part of that laconic nature she was attracted to in the beginning, replacing it with careworn gazes and a fervent kind of hope; Asha has no choice in kissing him to stop him looking at her like that, as if she truly is his queen, and she didn't fail in so many places.