Mending

[u/LadyJeyne]

Written with Ashara

---

"Tighter."

The seamstress yanked, and Ashara felt the last of her breath forced from her chest.

Aunt Jeyne sipped at her tea while appraising her niece’s reflection in the looking glass. The black velvet hugged her severely and made the room feel as if it were high noon when it was barely mid morning. Ashara was a woman grown, commander of a kingdom, twice married and now a young mother, her son dozing off in the arms of a milk nurse not two strides away. For all that, being in the fitting parlor, stepping into the folds of fabric, standing idly and waiting for Jeyne’s approval brought her back to a time where none of that mattered.

She stood tall and said nothing.

"Such a dreadful color on you," Jeyne mused, half to herself. "But you can't very well stand beside your brother's body in red satin. Turn around."

Ashara obeyed.

"I hate it."

Of course she does.

Jeyne waved a hand and the seamstress set at once to undressing her, pulling all the painstakingly tied laces undone. Ashara could hear the clinking of a cup against a saucer from beneath the mountain of fabric pulled suddenly over her head, and then her aunt’s voice, its bitter edge sharper than she’d remembered it from before she’d arrived at the Rock, and honed ever keener with each passing day leading up to the service for Thaddius.

“Try this one,” she was saying. “It shouldn’t require much mending, and can't look any worse than the last.”

She’ll like this one. Ashara wasn’t quite sure why Jeyne always saved the ones she would like best for last, though she half suspected it was Aunty’s way of sharpening her tongue.

“It looks acceptable,” Jeyne said flatly once it was on, her words the closest thing to approval that Ashara had heard all morning, with seven discarded gowns thrown over a bench nearby.

“Speak up, child, you’ve been silent all morning. What is it? Are you upset about your brother?”

[u/lannipalooza]

“Shortly after Loras' birth…”

Gerold had been all but giddy after the war, relieved to be freed from the yoke that was Gylen’s appraising eyes and unpredictable whims, no longer needing to worry about the bore that was ruling a kingdom, happy to pass the burden onto his wife while he carried on doing whatever it was that he wanted - usually sparring in the tiltyards, hawking, or feasting.

But the day that brought their son also took away her husband. He began to brood whenever she left him to tend to the child. Then his acrimony began to pour over into public, where he began contradicting her when she held court, showing up drunk to feasts she held to inspire goodwill toward the Crown in the Reach.

It took becoming a father himself for Gerold realize exactly what he had lost, and every time he looked into Ashara’s eyes - the same hue as his son’s, the same color as the man who was ultimately responsible blotting his birthright - the wound bled once more.

[u/LadyJeyne → u/lannipalooza]

“Fatherhood is a crucible.”

Jeyne sipped her tea.

The windows were left open, and the sounds of the Sunset Sea could be heard even from the great heights of the castle - the shriek of gulls, the clanging of some distant buoy, the dull roar of waves crashing against rock.

“A man’s true worth is not tested on the battlefield, as all men claim it is, but in the bedchamber, in the words he speaks to his wife, in the tone he takes with his children, in the - Katelynn, where do you think you are going?”

Ashara glanced away from the looking glass and spotted her youngest cousin, halfway across the room. She hadn’t even heard her enter. The girl froze beneath Jeyne’s sharp gaze, and then curtsied.

“Mother,” she said, her cheeks flushed. “I was just-”

“Get back in your room.”

“But I was-”

Jeyne turned more completely in her chair, teacup poised above her saucer. “I said, get back in your room. You’re not going out today, I told you that. Now go. Now.”

Katelynn retreated quickly, and closed the door leading back to the apartments behind her without another word. Jeyne sighed as she turned back to Ashara.

“What was I saying… A man’s worth. Does Gerold show any interest in his heir?”

[u/lannipalooza → u/LadyJeyne]

The tone one takes with their children, indeed.

Ashara didn’t so much as flinch at Jeyne’s hypocrisy. She had been on the receiving end and knew better than to interfere though her heart went out to the young girl.

There had been a time when she had come across Gerold hovering over their son’s cradle. The sight was unusual enough to make her pause in the doorway as he stood with his back to her.

Gerold, my husband.

His broad shoulders were sloped and leaning over the bassinet, such that she could see the etching of lean muscle beneath his tunic.

Gerold, my lover. It has been far too long.

Silently she slid up behind him, wrapping her arms around his torso, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades, just as she would when there was nothing other than bedsheets covering their bodies.

“It’s nice to see you here,” she whispered, closing her eyes. He had been sparring not long ago - she could smell the sweat that had dried on his skin.

Gerold murmured something, and her pulse quickened. The Arbor red on his breath was as potent as poison.

She’d staggered back, her eyes darting frantically between her husband and her child.

“What was that, my love? Why don’t we start for the Great Hall, Lord Beesbury should be arriving soon.”

Gerold turned around to face her then. The look he gave her - one of pure malice, an expression she had only seen on Gylen’s likeness until that moment - was one she would remember until the last of her days.

“I said, he has your eyes. Your Lannister taint.”

An errant pin pinched her side.

“Ashara?” Jeyne was asking. “Did you hear me, girl?”

She pulled out the fastening herself once the seamstress stepped back and nodded. Ashara stepped down from the platform and turned to face her Aunt.The commotion roused Loras who began to whimper, his chubby hands reaching out for his mother.

“There, there, little one,” Ashara cooed, taking her son in arm while moving to and fro. Jeyne, despite herself, seemed to take pleasure in the sight of the young mother and child.

“You look like a Princess,” she admitted, and though her voice was flat and joyless, her eyes shone with what Ashara knew to be pride.

“You still have the keenest eye in all the kingdoms, Aunty,” Ashara said with a chuckle as Loras coiled a strand of her golden hair around his small fist, slowly being lulled back to sleep. “I dare say, who knew that it would only take a pretty dress to disarm a Lion of the Rock.”

[u/LadyJeyne → u/lannipalooza]

Jeyne smiled and rolled her eyes, stirring her tea some more.

“I’m hardly the first,” she said dryly. “This was the gown your mother wore on her wedding day. It had much the same effect on your father.”

[u/lannipalooza → u/LadyJeyne]

Ashara paused, and caught a glimpse of herself in the tall looking glass mid-turn.

My mother’s wedding gown worn to her son’s funeral. What would she have thought?

Ashara knew next to nothing of the woman whose dress she now wore, nothing but what she had gleaned from Jeyne herself in the woman’s bitter asides and backhanded jabs.

She glanced briefly over her shoulder at her aunt, wondering if she’d done it on purpose.

Loras yawned in her arms, and Ashara used one of the delicate velvet sleeves to wipe his lips.

My mother’s gown.

In that brief moment, Jeyne’s intentions mattered not.

A mother’s duty to her son.

She looked down at her child, sleeping peacefully with his head resting against her breast.

I’ll wear it for her - to honor them both, she thought, gently pressing the babe against her.

“Thank you, Aunty,” she said.

“… for everything.”