A viper may be fast and full of venom, but it is small, easily crushed by a mountain. The Viper looks into the eyes of the Mountain and thinks the old wisdom true.
So when he fights, he is a blur. He spins and dances out of reach, whirling his own unique weapon. The loss of one is unnerving, but he recovers. Through all this, he does not cease to taunt the Mountain, to remind him of his crimes against House Martell.
The Mountain says nothing. Mountains never do.
When the Viper draws blood, he knows he has won.
Eventually, with enough cuts, the Mountain crumbles to the ground. The Viper steps forward.
Oberyn pauses, for one second, to think an action through - for what well may be the first time in his life.
Even rumbling mountains have power. A falling rock can still crush a serpent.
(In another world, he does not think.
In another world, he steps too close.
In another world, he is crushed.)
In this world, the Viper traces a lazy circle around the Mountain where he is jut out of reach, collecting the man's fallen sword as he does so. If he so chooses, the Viper could watch as his opponent bleeds out, dying from either wounds or poison. But that is not the excitement the crowds want to see. So he talks.
"You lie bleeding, Mountain; I have killed you though you yet live. It doesn't have to be this way. I present you with a choice: Confess to the crimes we both know you committed, and I will show you mercy. Stay silent, and you will die the slow, agonizing death you deserve."
Where there was silence before, the crowd now filled the air with murmurs. From the corner of his eye, the Viper could see the old lion stiffen as his pathetic daughter no doubt expressed some concern for her monstrous pet. When he looked the old lion in the eye, Tywin's gaze narrowed. Slowly, he smiled grimly, understanding but not condemning. The old lion made no move but to watch the Viper trace his circle.
The woman who wished herself a lioness, the pawn who thought herself a queen, she did not understand. She kept up her whining until the Mountain opened his mouth.
"I did it. I killed Elia and her children-"
"Her innocent children," Oberyn interjected in a congenial voice.
"Her innocent children. I killed all of them that night. Satisfied, Viper?"
The Viper shrugged, and dropped the huge man's sword off where he could not reach. "Not entirely, as I was rather hoping you'd chose to get what you deserve. Still, a deal is a deal. I will show you mercy."
With one swift motion, his spear was driven into the Mountain's body. It ran in one solid, deadly line from the Viper's hands to the still heart of Gregor Clegane.
The crowd may have roared in indignation. The false lioness may have risen to her feet screaming while her father sat quietly, that pensive and knowing face supported by a splayed hand.
But Oberyn noticed none of this. He released his weapon and stepped away from the corpse of his enemy. He turned on his heels, hearing nothing but the reassuring pounding of the blood in his body, and practically ran into the arms of his paramour.
"Ellaria," he murmured, when his face was buried in her neck. His hands were lost in her hair as he wrapped himself around her.
"Shush," she replied, sensing this was no lust brought on by blood. Let the crowd think what they liked about them, but she surrounded him in turn, rubbing circles into his back. She was his anchor to this earth. No storm could tear her loose.
"I heard you scream. In that moment, I heard you scream as if I had failed. As if I were dead."
She does not kiss him. That's not what he needs. "But you did not fail. You are in my arms, and damn the world if it thinks you can be removed from them."
That is the moment when some poor lackey taps him on the shoulder. "They're calling for you."
"The Lannisters?" Oberyon's voice is strong again though he does not move to address his lady to her face.
"Who else," she replies with some semblance of the playing tone she usually wears in public.
When he tears himself from her side, it is the Red Viper that goes to stand out in the arena where he fought and defend himself from the hysterical, pathetic Queen Regent as her father rolls his eyes and tries to silence her without entirely embarrassing his family before the whole court. It is the Viper that smirks and speaks with barbed tongue in circles around the woman about defining mercy. It is the Viper who looks the little lion in the eyes and silently reminds him of promised justice, promised vengeance, that is only one strike complete.