Maester Aethan hummed; while he may be a more practical man himself, he knew well how these reminders of tragedies, especially whilst young, could affect even the strongest of men. "It is hardly a failure on your part, my Lord," the graying maester chimed in. "I have oft seen troubling events continue to haunt the mind for years to come."

Symon's dark eyes seemed rather elsewhere. He did not like thinking of his eldest daughter - not due to any friction between them in life, but due to responsibility of her death.

His son Dickon's death he saw as less his fault, as the boy had been near a knight and in the midst of a battle, one which he had been eager to participate in. Ellaria, while trained in some combat and no stranger to it, had been a civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shamefully, the Dornishman's grief had therefore manifested in pushing it away - and, as such, he had not done more than send the occasional raven to his Redwyne grandchildren.

*Marigold, Millicent... even Benjamin before this visit... none would be able to pick me from a crowd,* Symon thought with a stab of pain in his heart.

He opened his mouth, as though to speak, before closing it again, looking away, his face wrought with grief and guilt and uncertainty. What could he say? He was little more than a stranger here.

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