ARIA RAVENSWOOD

“My lady! Why are you here? You should be with sleep by this hour,” the serving maid, tasked with the duty of night, gaped at Aria as she walked into the castle’s kitchen. The room was faintly brightened by the liaison of the moonlight, swooping in through high windows, and the flames of two torches hanging from the sconces set in either sides of the walls. Littered about were an assortment of pots, skillets and cauldrons, and at the edge of the kitchen, hung skinned and lifeless bodies of goats and pigs, smeared with salt for preservation. 

“My mother’s night milk please. I’m about to make my way to her room, so I’ll take it,” Aria said, her face plain, and her brown hair a bonny tousle, as she watched with brown eyes devoid of sleep, the tawny-haired maid, who was covered in a coarse woollen gown of brown, standing with a silver round tray in hand before a trestle table, with a small ewer and a cup sitting atop it.

“I shall take it to her, my lady. Please return to your room, you should not be away from the holdfast by this hour,” the maid begged. 

“I came with my guard, there’s nothing to worry about,” Aria assured her, while taking a step forward closer to the table and the maid. Her guard had also been against her leaving the holdfast, but she had pestered him as she did the maid now, and even threatened to go alone if he did not adhere, she had left him with no choice, and he had no sooner found himself waiting outside the kitchen’s door, than let her wander the castle alone. “Is the milk in there?” She pointed to the ewer. 

“My lady, please. If you take it to the queen yourself she will know you left the holdfast, and I’ll be scolded for letting you do such,” the maid begged again, but Aria ignored her pleas, and gently dragged the silver tray from her hand. 

“She’s my mother, she will not scold you if I tell her not to.” Aria placed the ewer and cup on the tray, then picked it up and turned her back to the jittery maid, as she walked out of the kitchen’s door. 

“Let me have it, my lady.” A soft clang followed the quick whirl of Aria’s guard, as he let his hand free from the leather scabbard fastened to his armoured waist, and gestured to the tray in the hands of the princess, as she wandered out of the kitchen, following its door shut. 

“Ah, thank you, Ser… Brandon…?” Aria was not sure of his name, she had never been good with names, and her guards changing every day and night, did little to help with that. She always kept mixing up their names, but she had a feeling she might have gotten his right this time, it would be a start for her if she did, well at least she hoped it would.

She could feel his lighthearted smile underneath the metal of his armet; his beady eyes falling to a soft close helped with that though, after all, his visor was up and she could see them. 

“Brynden, my lady.” His reply helped her notice that she had failed again, and he corrected her, again. “And I am not a Ser. I am just a guard, not knighted.” He took hold of the tray, relieving the princess of its burden, as they began their stroll back to the holdfast, Aria in front and him behind. 

Her face did not show it, but she was least pleased with herself for fumbling the name of her guard again, one of the many she had. They were the men who deprived themselves of their night’s sleep, and kept her watch whenever she had the comfort of hers, or whenever she went about her day, the least she thought she could do was to remember their names, and that she still couldn’t accomplish. 

“How many times now?” She asked. They were walking through the open space of the great yard now. The glow of the crescent moon rained upon them, blessing them with light—not like they needed it though, the great yard was plenty lit already. Iron braziers, of at least the number twenty, burned with fire and stood beside guards standing at their posts. All the guards were clad in the same full body armour and black cloak as her own guard, Brynden, only difference in that his legs were moving and his visor was up, while theirs were down and their legs stiff, they reminded her of the statues she used to read in books, if they weren’t already. 

The wind sang softly as it ran past her, and her hair danced to its tune shamelessly, while her blue, linen nightgown, rippled the ripples of a river. She loved the feel of it, it reminded her of the other she loved as much, if not more, the rain. She always wanted to dance beneath it whenever it came, but her mother would not have that. “I do not want you to fall sick, my little flower,” she would say, and Aria would fall back to gazing at the pours from the window of her room, or better still, her little garden. 

“This makes it five times now, my lady,” Brynden answered. Five times she had fumbled his name, and five times he had corrected. 

“Forgive me,” she apologised, 

“There’s nothing to forgive, my lady, I’m a mere guard. It’s already warming enough that you put so much thought into my name,” he replied. 

Her hands stopped the ripples of her gown as she and Brynden escaped the moonlight, and made their way past the two men guarding the holdfast’s entrance. 

After walking silently the rest of the way through the small yard and into the royal quarters, they finally arrived at the queen’s chambers. “Tell my mother I’m here to see her,” Aria told the guard that manned the chamber’s door, and he nodded in reply. His visor was down, and she couldn’t see what person was beneath all those metal fastenings, but his voice gave her an idea. 

“My queen! The princess is here to see you,” he announced. His voice was a deep one, layered with strength and maturity. His exact age Aria could not guess, but the range she could. He was neither too young nor too old, she thought, he was most likely to be in his late thirties, and so she left it at that—to her, whoever was beneath that armour was in his late thirties.

“Let her in,” her mother replied from the other end, and with that, the guard opened the door for the princess’ passage. She took the tray from Brynden, and waltzed into the room and before her mother, like the graceful little flower she was.

Yes, it was the scent Aria loved the most. The flowery scent of her mother’s perfume, a pleasant mixture of rose and lavender which encapsulated the room. Her mother had told her that she also had been entranced by it the first time it blessed her nose; it had been a gift from her father, Aria’s grandfather, to her on her seventeenth birthday when she had come of age, and was being prepared for her betrothal to the late king, her husband and Aria’s father, Sargon. She believed the perfume was why she had captured his heart, and she had loved it ever since.

“My little flower. What’s that in your hand?” Ophelia beamed at the sight of her daughter. She was laid sideways on the grand bed she called her own, while her elbow supported the weight of her head which bristled with hair of pale yellow, and was propped up on the back of her palm. The wind drifting in from the open window left the room crispy, and the unlit hearth made sure not to spoil that. It was summer, but her room had never known the sweltering of heat, it was good anyway, she hated sweating as much as she hated the other queen and her children; in her mind she saw them as nothing less than usurpers.

Aria answered as she dropped the tray on the table standing at the centre of the room, “Your night milk, Mother.” She picked the ewer and poured the milk from it into the cup. 

“And why are you the one that brought it? Where’s the serving girl?” Ophelia’s brows knitted into a displeased frown, the upper arch which blessed her lips now gone, and what was left in its wake was an irritated demeanour. 

Aria turned to face her mother with the cup of milk in hand. “I went to the kitchen to get it.”

“You left the holdfast?” Ophelia’s visage was worsening by the second, and Aria instantly knew she was to act fast, or what the maid had told her would no doubt come to fruition. 

“I was coming to your room, so I thought it would be best to relieve her burden. She even looked tired, like she had not closed her eyes to sleep for a while. And I went with my guard, Ser… Ser… Brynden, yes, Ser Brynden. Do not scold her, Mother, I was only trying to be of help.” Of course she was only trying to be of help, she was a delicate little flower of fifteen afterall. 

Her mother sighed and called to her as she sat up on the bed, “Come, my little flower. Come sit.” 

“Your milk?” Aria asked.

“You first, milk later. Leave the milk on the table, and come sit.” She tapped the bed where the hem of her blue nightgown sprawled. She was wearing a bigger version of the nightgown her daughter wore, they both shared the same love for blue afterall. 

Aria left the milk on the table, and let herself onto the bed of her mother. 

Ophelia placed her hand on Aria’s head, and began stroking her silky hair; she did that whenever it was time for a lesson, and Aria began to ready herself for another one of the many she had received. 

“Good you did, my little flower,” she told her, “if you were a mere noble. You are the princess of a kingdom, you should not concern yourself with the workings of common folks. You, my little flower, are a raven, and we ravens revel in our pride and power; power you shall one day have. I know you mean well, and I will not rebuke you for that, instead, I’ll help you learn, I’ll teach you the way of we the ravens, I’ll teach you the workings of our pride and power before you come of age.” She pulled Aria close and kissed her on the forehead. Aria felt she had done well, her mother did not rebuke her, so she would not scold the serving girl…

…but that notion came to a crunching close the next day, when she heard the gossips of serving workers in the small yard, as she made her way to the small hall with her guard of the day. The queen had dismissed both her guard and the serving maid of last night, and then and there, she remembered and understood the words her mother had told her: “I’ll teach you the way of we the ravens, I’ll teach you the workings of our pride and power.”