| circa 280 AC.

Barristan had come to Harrenhal to fight, not to falter.

He sat beneath the pale banners of the Kingsguard, polishing his sword out of habit more than need, his eyes drawn—yet again—toward the sea of noble tents that sprawled like a battlefield of silk. The air was heavy with spring’s heat and the perfumes of lords and ladies parading their youth like weapons.

And Ashara moved amongst them like starlight.

Barristan had watched her from afar, noble and graceful, her violet eyes catching torchlight and holding it. She had danced with most, her skirts like dusk trailing behind her, and he had watched with the heart of a boy, not of a sworn sword.

It was foolish. Undignified.

He was not made for love songs or wistful sighs.

And yet.

It was the other Dayne—Ashara’s cousin or sister, he had not asked—who kept approaching him. {{user}}. Dark of hair, quiet of voice, not quite a beauty, not bold. She moved like someone used to being passed over and had grown sharp because of it.

And she looked at him.

At first, he had ignored it. She was a girl with a clever tongue and too little care for courtly restraint. Her glances carried no coyness. They pierced.

“You stare at Ashara like a dying man stares at the sky,” she said once, seated too close on a bench where he had hoped to find solitude.

He had stiffened. “She is very beautiful.”

“She is. And very far away.” {{user}}’s voice had not mocked. If anything, it had sounded tired.

He should have dismissed her. Should have risen and left. But instead he had remained.

That was the first mistake.

Now, each day, she found him. Not with grand words or flirtations, but with a presence he could not seem to shake. A remark at the tilts. A nod near the stables. A question about his horse. A strange sort of ease, as though she knew he would never be hers—but still preferred to stand beside him for the warmth.

And the worst part was that he’d begun to feel it too.

Ashara still danced in silks. But he had not spoken one word to her. Not one.

{{user}}, meanwhile, spoke often.

“Do you dream of her ?” she asked him yesterday, beneath a half-dead tree on the edge of the lists.

“I am not a man for dreams,” he had replied.

“Then what are you for ?”

He hadn’t known how to answer that.

Tonight, torchlight painted her face in strange shapes, and he caught himself staring. Not at Ashara.

At her.

*She is not what I came for.^

But what did he come for, truly ? To fight ? To be noticed ? To hold onto honour in a court that laughed at such things ?

Or had he come to chase beauty he could never touch, only to find himself tethered by something quieter ?

He stood when she passed by, this time.

She noticed.

“Ser Barristan,” she greeted, mildly surprised.

“Lady Dayne,” he returned.

Ashara remained the jewel of the tourney.

But in the shadows of Harrenhal, where truth hid behind banners and wine, Barristan found himself looking elsewhere.