Why I love Ash, from The Iron Fey series

    Julie Kagawa, author of The Iron Fey series, is giving away 3 copies of The Iron Legends on her blog.     

    This text is my entry to this giveway. You can find more information about it here. 

Why I love Ash, from The Iron Fey series

Why I love Ash, a.k.a. His Royal Icyness? Why wouldn’t I love a loyal, determined, sweet, caring, badass, skilled, breath-takingly gorgeous Prince? Is this question that hard to answer? Well… yes.

My love for Ash came a long way. It all started in The Iron King, when he first danced with Meghan. I admit, I wasn’t all that impressed by his charms, but something in him almost dared me to challenge him. He was an interrogation point. And I couldn’t entirely trust him. 

As Ash proved again and again to be – though not trust-worthy – valuable, and just plain badass, I realized that there was much, much more than meets the eye when it comes to him. Buried inside layers of indifference, there was a tortured soul, and an honorable boy, in there. This was so obvious, and as the story went on, I fell more and more in love with him. Every quick remark, every intense look... it all made me fall even more for him.

To put it finally into words… but why did I fall for him?

Well, Ash is just so incredibly honorable, good, and human (despite the fact that he has no soul) that it’s impossible not to look at him and think “I want him next to me. I want this guy to exist so that I can hug him, and make him smile and ease his suffering. I want to put all his concerns on my shoulders and make him laugh. Just because I want to, and because he’s so good that he deserves it.”

And it’s kind of hilarious, really, since Ash threatened to take off a guy’s testicles and put them in a jar, and instead of me reacting like any person would:

 

It was more like this:

and this:

But most of all, I love Ash because of his strength. How he’s able to pick up his sword and attack a battalion of lethal monsters to protect the girl he loves. How he’s so hell bent on being with the one person that means the most to him. How he goes to the end of the world and back to be with Meghan. How he suffered Ariella’s death, how he got torn apart, but had the sense – and the heart – to put himself back together for Meghan’s sake. But what really amazes me is how I can look at Ash and see a pure and fragile heart, despite everything that he went through. How he feels as real as the person that’s sitting right next to me.

 

I love how Ash helped me when I found out the boy I was in love with for more than 4 months was in love with my best friend. I love the way I was able to open The Iron Knight, and dive into Ash’s mind, in his protective nature, in his determined instance and I was surprised to see that it helped. Ash – indirectly – helped me heal my broken heart. When I looked at him and saw how he went through all of this… I thought “I want to be as strong as him.” And I was. Kind of. It’s not like I can kick some ass.

 

But I can still do this:

And that's good enough for me. It's hard to put all these feelings into words, but to be quite simple, I love Ash because he's not perfect, but with his force of will alone, he gets what he wants, and does whatever is necessary - no matter what. 

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So, that's my entry for the giveaway. It was so hard to write this text, and it's really huge, so I apologize for that. I tried my best, but I'm not sure if that'll be enough xD Gotta pray to every single god out there! \o

 Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it!