Krakenfish [Ashe]

So that was what was behind all of this. Well, probably not. Dalton knew his father. He would not grow angry just because a potential bride was no longer available. Well, maybe he would grow angry, but he would not immediately move over to assaulting and kidnapping people. Most likely, it had been something else that had infuriated him. Instead of replying right away, he instead stood still and seized her up again. Her stance purposefully and upright, not truly scared of him and ready to move if necessary. Alert, vivid eyes and hair that seemed a tad bit out of place in a Northerner.

Yes, it was likely that. No wonder she did not understand, could not understand. Keeping an eye on the guard just in case this was taken worse than it was, the young kraken raised his hand, as if to touch the girl’s face. Most likely, she would flinch from that, underlining his words. He was pretty sure of that. “I see. I think I know now just why he grew angry at you. Do you know the distinction between a salt wife and a rock wife? I think that it is related to that, but it is a bit hard to explain to the uninitiated.”

He retracted his hand completely, putting both of them behind his back to calm the guard, just in case. Then he gave a brief, ironic laugh. “Listen to me acting all mysterious. But yes, I can see how that could have happened. You are a desirable woman after all. Were you not married, I might have sought to court you myself. Though, again, your fault in the eyes of an Ironborn might have made that a fool’s errand as well.” He shrugged. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. It was for the best like this. The wife he wanted was one that he could take with him on his journeys, maybe even stand at the helm with him. Strong of heart, mind and body. This young lady did not meet all three at all. She was beautiful, yes, but beautiful was for one’s salt, not for one’s rock.

“But you are not entirely right when you say that it was all your fault, Ashe. My father is oftentimes not a reasonable man. What you did sounds to me as if it had been the right thing. Do not blame yourself for unreasonable responses to reasonable actions. You say you can’t be as strong as your mother, but I think you can, if you put your mind and heart into it. If you do, there might be a way to facilitate what you want without murder. Because I am pretty sure that the girl is currently being guarded. If I were to free her against father’s will, it might cost someone’s life. But you seem intent to ensure that no one will have to die, so I think we would have to do this by subterfuge. And I think there is a possibility. But it requires you to trust me completely. And it requires you to be active and take risks with me.”

This was something he had honestly not expected. The woman in front of him was relatively easy to read in some regards, but sometimes she did throw a curveball like this, just doing something that hardly seemed in line with everything else. If he had come any more after his father, he would have felt a sense of victory from this and capitalized on the opportunity. Yet, he wasn’t. It was bewildering to see her send the guard away instead of him and he had to arch a brow. It was proof that she trusted him, yes, but it did not seem wise nonetheless.
However, it was her decision. It was not his place to question it, anyway.

It was on him to return that favour right away. “Your fault is, at least it appears to me, that the strength you have is a gentle one. Some of your actions make you appear strong, someone who knows of her ability and is willing to make a point. However, you seem to shy away from confrontations and making hard or harsh calls. Wishing to not back down and hold your ground, yet also that no one should get hurt, that kind of thing. At times, you seem closer to Iron than silk, Ashe, but you do not go all the way. I believe that father almost respected you, when he saw the former, but then you likely showed a weakness contracting it. Soft women are prey to father. Hard women are those he can consider peers or rivals. You likely just seemed like a soft woman that did not know her place to him, which riles him up like few other things. Maybe he took your aide to break you, to show you what he perceives to be your place.”

Granted, he could be dead wrong about all of this. But from what he had heard and what he knew of the man he had lived with for most of his life, it made the most sense. If Ashe was just a weak and whiny person, the elder kraken would likely have ignored the feeble young lady. But if she had indeed spoken up to him, yet lacked the strength to follow up on it, she would have clearly provoked him.
Alas though, that was in the past. Maybe the girl understood it better like this. Dalton, on his part, stretched wholesomely. Not having a human-shaped sword pointed at him anymore was liberating after all.

He returned to business rather quickly, however. Those bright eyes showed a certain sincerity that he truly could not and should not ignore. It was necessary to take everything seriously here. “I apologize if I misjudged you, however. I do not know you well enough to say how often you may or may not hesitate.” Another brief bow followed, along with the apology. “I am glad that you are willing to take that risk, however. I potentially have a plan that could work, but your guard would definitely not have liked it.” Dalton laughed briefly, looking in the direction that the other had vanished into. “I don’t think that I can take that girl from my father without violence. But if we play our cards right, we might be able to convince him to give her up – before doing whatever he plans on doing with her. This man killed every wife he took to further my sisters in childbirth. I fear we will have to act swiftly if you truly wish to save her.”

“And that, dear Ashe, is the great question that I have been asking myself for almost two decades now,” he announced, before turning to the side briefly, eyes directed straight at the sea for the time being. He was still wary of his surroundings though, not because he feared that the guard could come back, but because the latter had left. Even Ironborn knew to protect fragile women, be they mothers, salt or just friends. Though, to be honest, most Ironborn he knew did not have any females that were only friends to them.

It was the truth though. His father often said that he was not a kraken, he was a man. Quite to the contrary, Dalton often did not see him as either of those things but as the crashing wave. Other people could not influence him, only get swept away by him as he went whatever way he wanted. The best one could do was to guide his path slightly, but never to the opposite direction.
After a bit of silent thinking, he returned to face her, still seeing the uneasiness that she was exhibiting. It likely was hard for her. “My father sees you fear him and considers it weakness. I see you enduring this, even though you are uneasy and would like nothing more to stand apart from him and consider it strength.”

It was a tangent, maybe, but it had to be said. Not everyone was born strong. There was no true strength in a brute of a man bullying a smaller one into submission. True strength was the weak that stood up to the strong, even if they did not truly have a chance. The gaze he was giving her right now was the softest of the evening so far, almost warm. It was neither that of a kraken seeking prey, not of a man seeking a woman – moreso, it was what he usually reserved only for his sisters. “The only way to convince a man like my father to give up a prize that he has already won is to make him trade it for a better one. He wanted you to marry me. Obviously, we cannot do that. But I can convince him that I can use the girl to draw you out, alone or with but a minimal guard. He likely deems you stupid, so it would be believable. From there, we let the girl go, I take you to Essos briefly, ostensibly to get you out of sight and not start a war, and from there I let you ‘escape’. That could work. If you have better ideas, I am willing to listen, of course. But I think that is the only way to do this that ends with no one dead or hurt.”

It would have been expecting too much to think that Ashe could truly follow through with such a plan. Even if she did not cause any damage to her house doing it, she knew that she would let them down. That was likely the opinion that the world had of the Tully – a gentle little northern flower that might wilt in the wind. And that despite the fact that she was not truly important to anyone. Tully heirs already existed and they would look down on children from a second mother. These were all problems or principle, not of concise thought and reasoning.

“Do you see the bonds that I was talking about now? Where I am willing to slight but not harm my family to assist a friend, you cannot bring to help yours. This is not judgment, of course. I guess it must be very hard for you. But you are letting others make your decisions for you, even if they do not even have to speak up. Those are the bonds.” Maybe he was pushing her away with those words again, but they did not make them any less true. Someone caught in the ‘what if’, the defeatist attitude, would never be able to achieve anything. In his opinion, until she did learn it, there was nowhere she could go with her ambition.
Well, either that or she did not actually care about a lowborn girl. After all, she had said it herself – if it had been a family member or just a highborn, she might have considered it. There was a logic to it, but only if she did not trust him. Otherwise, she valued her family nt being mad at her more than a lowborn’s life, which would be a disappointment. Her caring enough about a lowborn to try to enlist him had been one of the things he had liked about her.

Still studying her face though, he had to concede that doing so meant little. Especially now that she revealed that she was fine with him risking something for the aide, but not doing so herself. A hint of disappointment could be found in his voice. “My lord father is….well?” His eyes betrayed genuine confusion. That question did not really fit into what was going on here. Granted, he had not seen the man on that day, but Quellon rarely fell ill in the first place. Plus, he was likely busy doing whatever he wanted to do to that aide at the moment. Not a man to wait, if he was going to ruin that woman he would likely start doing so right away unless something distracted him. But Dalton did not have the heart to tell the lady in front of him that.
“I mean as well as he will ever be. But we still have time. Maybe we can think of another plan that you could actually agree on. Giving up just because one can’t think of a solution in under an hour is unbecoming for Greyjoys, Tullies and Starks. We at least have that much in common.”

“I would assume that you would inform them, of course,” he replied, just as reflexively, but he could tell that this was already a lost cause. Northerners were a stubborn folk and Riverlanders a bunch of worrywarts. Combining the two, the lady seemed to be too conscious about such things – possibly to her own demerit.
After all, the alternative she came up with was even crazier than what he had offered so far. Almost immediately, he shot her an equally worried gaze, but that was likely pointless. Stubbornness was a thing, after all.

Still though, a stern gaze he gave her. Then he sighed. “I doubt that father will come to you, even if you invited him. If he had wanted to, he’d come to you instead of taking your aide,” he noted. This would be even worse than what he had suggested. So far, he’d tried to keep those two apart, even though it would have been easier to do his plan that way. Well, easier for him at least. She would have suffered further consequence. Shortly lifting his hand to his head as if this induced a headache, he tried to make sense of things.
There was a way to do this, though it would require him to almost openly oppose father – but not in a very meaningful way. So, it could work. “You don’t want to come to Pyke, of course. That would be just as bad as my plan and coming with a full envoy would just cause chaos. Speaking in public is also not a good idea if that is your goal. But I could get you on his ship before we depart. I could share salt and bread with you. Even he has to respect guest right, I think. That way, you should not be in any danger, one way or another. Do you want me to arrange that?”

Once more, he gave her a somewhat curious glance. This time he did pick up on something possibly not being alright, as she started pushing herself against the wall. Ashe had warned him that she was somewhat weak, after all. Lacking a concept for what such words actually meant, he had simply assumed that she did not have a lot of strength in a fight. Yet, from the looks of it, things seemed a bit more severe after all. Slightly worried, he decided that it would be best to get her home soon enough.

But before that happened and before the guard, likely alarmed by this, returned, he wanted to fix things up as good as he could. As such, he briefly knelt down in front of her, relatively close, so that they were on the same height. “I am sure that she is still alive. As long as that is the case, she can still be saved. The wake tomorrow is a problem, especially given how my father is. He won’t leave before nightfall though, I am certain of that, unless someone starts an actual fight. Meet me here again tomorrow and I will get you to him. Just tell your family that you are too tired to whatever they have planned after the wake and we will figure the rest out from there.”
That being said, he would offer her his hand to help her up. Resting was good and all, but she could not do it here. “But for now, you need rest. Father is not a man you should face tired and weak. Now, where is that guard of yours?”