Chapter 5: Lord Renly Barrow Makes His Entrance

The first great ball of the season arrived on a Thursday, which the court of King's Crossing considered auspicious, and which Aria Stark considered an arbitrary assignment of significance to a day of the week that had done nothing to deserve it.

She said as much to Joanna while their hair was being dressed, and Joanna said that she was being deliberately contrary, and Aria said that she was being accurately contrary, which was a different thing entirely, and their mother said, from across the room where she was seated before her own glass with the composed expression of a woman who had managed this particular exchange for fourteen years, that they were both of them going to the ball regardless, and that a single evening of social participation would not, to her knowledge, have killed anyone.

She paused almost imperceptibly after saying so.