ofblackwinds:
“you certainly have the tongue of a fancy knight.” asha laughed, amused by the novelty of his carefully picked words, his rounded accent and the sheer difference of knightly ways to those of the ironborn. “but your sentiment is appreciated.” she nodded in acknowledgement and downed a hefty portion of what was in her cup.
the longer she stayed at dragonstone, the more she heard of the man who shadrich had previously told her he was employed by. he sounded quite the slimy little eel, but a rich one at that. “a small mercy for you.” her curiosity was piqued. “what is it you do for lord littlefinger? i have seen sellswords, but they don’t look like you, mouse knight.”
her own loved ones, those she truly treasured - her mother, her salt wife, her uncles victarion and rodrik - and relief at their absence overtook her desire to see them all again. she sighed, and leaned back on the legs on her chair, surprised at how genuinely glad she was to hear this man’s loved ones were safe. were these mainlanders making her soft? “shady glen sounds exactly the sort of place i’d rather be.” a black brow arched upwards. “is it as idyllic as it sounds?”
a childhood spent far from home, in places that forced a young merchant’s son to play at being a little lordling — or at least something that looked like one, had made shadrich sound like the fancy knight she accused him of being. of course, there was also his title, earned for valor while serving the king stannis baratheon, but shadrich did not quite see himself as such, at least not anymore. ser shadrich only when such a name suited him, he was more the mad mouse now than he had ever been. perhaps, one day, he would be more of a knight again, but that time wasn’t now.
‘ protection, mostly. insurance. he’s got a few swords in his service. ’ asha would probably still stand by her sentiment if she saw the two other hedge knights that littlefinger had employed : byron the beautiful and morgarth the merry, one the pretty knight of many ladies’ dreams and the other a bury man who was physically everything shadrich wasn’t. yet, the mouse was confident in what he was. ‘ i sound like a knight, but i look like ? ’ he asks, giving her a curious smile.
‘ i think it is, ’ shadrich replies, taking another drink before continuing. ‘ i haven’t lived there since i was young, and i don’t go back frequently. don’t get to. my sister paints a pretty picture of it in her letters. ’

















