Chapter Text
The ironwood grove has kind of been their thing since day one – a gloomy, typically Northern sunless one, as he remembers it, but filled with shrill laughter as he and Asher had been running after one another among the towering trees, with their baby sister in pursuit.
“Bad Ash-Ash and Rod-Rod! They not wait for Mira. They arseholes!”
“Wherever did you learn that from, Mira?” Rodrik had widened his eyes at the indignant little girl in shock, and then immediately narrowed them at his brother.
“What? Why must it always be my fault?” the blond boy had put his best innocent face on, but Rodrik hadn’t been fooled. ‘Innocence’ and ‘Asher’ were concepts as foreign to one another as the ice on the Wall was to the sands of Dorne.
“Because it usually is, Ash.”
Asher had only grinned one of his infuriating smug grins in response. “Ooooh, now I’m so scared. What is the ‘lord in training’ going to do to me? Ple-eease, Mira, save me from his dooming wrath!”
That and a perfectly timed wink in her direction (no one could say Asher didn’t have talent for the dramatics) had been enough to send the small girl into a fit of giggling, her previous pout already forgotten; and Rodrik had been willing enough to put up with his brother’s endless pranking if only for her sake. After all, being a lord was often about putting up with people who annoyed you (and whose last name was most likely going to be Whitehill), as his father liked to remind him every now and then.
“Come here, brother, and I will be happy to show you exactly what I’d do,” he’d smiled back, deceptively sweet but with eyes still narrowed dangerously.
“Ha! You’ll have to catch me first, your lordship!”
With that Asher had sprinted away again, and Rodrik would never have been able to catch up with him while also having to carry Mira with him on his back –and that had been his brother’s plan precisely, he was sure– until the fugitive Forrester had bumped straight into an unexpected presence in their solitary grove: Lord Gregor’s guest, there to admire their famed trees alongside their proud father.
“Guess yer stories of little faerie creatures inhabiting yer woods aren’t that far-fetched after all, ey?” Lord Glenmore had joked, good-naturedly ruffling Mira’s dark locks as she shyly hid her face into Rodrik’s neck. “Ah, this lass is going to be a pretty one too, Gregor. And I think my Elaena will enjoy finally having a lady friend to play with – won’t ye, little bird?”
It was only then that Rodrik had noticed the girl standing very calmly and composedly next to the Rill lord, studying them all with lively green eyes. In his mind he could see why he hadn’t, too awed at first approach by the stout, imposing figure of her father; but at the same time he couldn’t fathom why in the name of the old gods and new it had taken him so long to see her, either. She might not have been graced with the bright, flamey red hair that made Lord Glenmore immediately stand out amongst the dominant blues and greens of their home landscape; but he found that the rich brown of her loose braid, coupled with the vivid green of her eyes, reminded him so much of this forest he considered home as much as their Ironrath keep – and that this made her quite beautiful.
It was the strangest of feelings, but…it felt like she belonged there already – and Rodrik felt quite sure he wanted to keep things that way.
“Father, I’ve been growing up with Quiver – I could handle more boys as friends,” the girl, Elaena, had first matter-of-factly told her father – save apparently considering something afterwards, which prompted her to smile brightly at the youngest Forrester child. “But I am very happy to meet you, Lady Mira,” she added, mimicking a perfect little curtsy which made the little girl beam happily at her, all traces of shyness discarded as easily as her previous outrage with her older brothers.
Of course Asher couldn’t have resisted a smartass intervention when he saw the opportunity for one, regardless of the elders’ presence. “Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’m told I’m quite a handful, for one” he chimed in, crossing his arms and sporting another one of his best arrogant grins.
Rodrik had rolled his eyes at his brother’s oh-so-very-obvious attempt to impress – but Elaena had seemed surprisingly very much immune to his charm.
“Anything that talks before it thinks, I can handle quite fine.”
Asher’s astonished face had been so priceless that no one, not even the adults, had been able to hold back their laughter, and even Lord Glenmore’s rebuke to his daughter had sounded half-muffled with mirth.
“Elaena! Behave!”
The girl had only smiled nonchalantly, and repeated another impeccable curtsy to the still stunned Forrester.
“Lord Asher.”
For a moment her gleeful green eyes had quivered in Rodrik and Mira’s direction; and though he knew her smile was probably meant more for his little sister’s sake, in that moment Rodrik’s chest had felt warmer.
“Mira likes ‘laena,” the little girl had whispered in his ear, still hiding giggles behind her tiny hands.
Rodrik had smiled at that.
Pretty, and owning Asher at her first try? This girl was something.
As do I, Mira. As do I.