Her father was dead.
A passing of mere old age as opposed to a glorious defeat in the midst of a chaotic battle. The man of the house was no more, and thus it would have been only fitting that Ashaia's brother, Dominic, would be the heir to this particular title.
But her mother disagreed. As she usually did. Sitting at the candlelit bedside of her dying husband, slender fingers clasped around calloused hands. A resilient older woman, who had seen many horrors. Domestically, financially, even physically. Evidenced in the paleness of her eyes, they withheld a certain power. Power surfaced from knowledge. An intelligence unmatched by her male counterparts. Her wrinkles were not yet deep enough to be considered anything more than mistaken for a mature sister.
But a mother of four, she certainly was.
A matriarch. The original feminine. The head of this new family. A family without a father to announce the final verdict. As his dutiful wife, she would step up to the helm and captain her ship as she saw fit. Until death would come to consume her too, and her eldest - Brienne - becomes the next matriarch. Bearing many of her own children. Most of whom would likely be daughters, eventually growing into strong feminines of their own.
Ashaia will be expected to follow in the production of female offspring, yet as of the current situation, she would bear not another daughter to accompany the first. But a son. A male babe who, for the time being, lay secret in her womb.
A bastard son, with a father she would not utter the name of. A reminder of a life once lived, plucked from her grasp as a punishment for her own selfish and deceitful ways.
