Mother had always been the sun to Doran, just as likely to nourish as to punish, one moment turning the whole world gold and the next searing the bricks even a man's shadow would turn to liquid.
"The Princess," were the words from many Dornish lips, from the serving girls out of Mother's hearing to the people of Shadow city hailing Mother whenever she rode through the streets in her litter.
Doran enjoyed the times he was allowed to sit with Mother in her litter. Always she would reach out with her strong arm, her golden bracelets clattering, and sweep aside the curtains of damask. The sounds and scents of the city would pour into the litter then. The tradesmen with fine silks and fluttering fans, and the craftsmen with their small towels for sweat hung over their shoulders. The fishwives with their lowered veils, their weathered brown hands reaching out for the litter. The young squires bouncing on their toes. The small children in ragged breeches laughing delightedly as they tried to get past the guards and offer Mother blood oranges.
Mother would always let one of her guards pass her the blood oranges and the lemons, and if the cheers were already loud the moment Mother swept aside the curtains, they were deafening when she collected the fruit.
"May I eat one, Mother?" Doran asked one time.
They were well past the Shadow city then, nearer to the Water Gardens than to Sunspear. Doran had eaten all the dates and cheese and fried bread he could get his hands on, but he was still hungry.
Mother pulled away her gaze from the blazing white horizon. It settled on him, spear-sharp, large, and liquid dark.
"Bring them to Maester Vir first. He will tell you when to eat them."
Doran forlornly set down the blood orange with the pile on the silks. "Why can I not eat now?"
"My growing son," Mother said with a grin. "You can eat them after the maester has deemed them safe enough to eat."
"Are they not safe?" He thought of the laughing children, of their people cheering for Mother.
Mother lifted her knee and draped her arm on it. "It is never amiss to be cautious, Doran. Especially on what you put into your body. We have our food tasted first under my supervision, and Maester Vir is versed on poisons."
"But, Mother. You said we must love our people, you always tell me, last night you just told me. We love them because they put trust in us to love them. I remember. So we give them food and water and peace and justice."
At first Doran thought he might forget, but so often did Mother tell him that now he could not forget as he could never forget his own name. "Never hunger," he continued, "never drought, never war, never injustice. When we give them that they will love us, too. So why would they put poison in blood oranges?"
"Someone else might have put the poison," Mother told him. "It was crowded, a lot was happening, it is well-known that I take fruit from my people."
Mother paused, drawing close the curtains of the litter. The scents of fruits and Mother's perfumes seemed to take form, bouncing off from the polished oak and the silk cushions.
"A lot of things were happening there," Mother said, peering down at him. "Many more things, aside from love. I love them, but I put guards around our litter. There were people out there who are not Dornish. They will seek to profit from Dorne's instability. Others will belong to Dornish Houses with grievances against House Nymeros Martell. Do you understand, Doran?"
"But you love them, Mother?" he asked, strangely afraid of the answer. "You truly love them? Like you love me?"
There was no smile on Mother's broad face. "Of course," she said, brushing aside Doran's hair from his forehead and kissing his brow. The span of Mother's hand was considerable.
/
It was never hard to miss Mother. She always seemed to fill any room she was in.
Doran's lessons with Maester Vir finished just before the midday meal was served, at the same time that the audience chamber in the Tower of the Sun opened its doors. A crowd would spill then, Mother amongst them with her guards.
Doran only needed to follow Mother's tall form, clad in pink veils and yellow and orange silks. Her laugh was round and could scarcely fit in the dome of the Tower of the Sun. Doran would follow that, too. When he was near enough, he would also hear the clatter of her golden bracelets and the long necklaces made of tiny golden suns. Mother moved as she laughed, as she talked. Doran would sometimes need to walk faster. Mother was a big woman, broad face and broader hips and even broader strides.
There was a time when Doran tried to race towards her even before she started walking away from the crowd.
He ignored Maester Vir's call and left behind his own guards.
Doran came tumbling on his knees, scraped his arms and elbows.
A shocked gasp blew from the crowd.
"Doran!" came Mother's voice.
Distantly, beyond the dull throbbing of his knees, he could hear Maester Vir's dismayed clucking drawing closer.
"My prince," Maester Vir began, when Mother cut him off.
"Leave him be." She strode towards Doran, her veils and silks billowing, her bracelets and necklaces clattering agitatedly. "My son," she said, her eyes kind.
Doran lifted his face. He would have felt shame, sprawled there in front of half the court, if he could only gather his breathe back. His chest hurt. His knees and hands, too.
"Doran," said Mother, "would you be able to stand?"
He swallowed. Doran braced his hand on the marble floor, and nodded. When he braced his other hand as well, Mother said, "That's it," and Doran knew that he would be able to stand.
When he was on his knees, Mother was saying, "There you go. Look at the prince stand on his own."
Maester Vir murmured reassuringly, and the people from the audience chamber started to call out encouragements.
Slowly, gingerly, Doran brought himself to his feet.
He looked up at Mother and found her smiling at him, wide and bright as the sun.
/
Mother's smiles came as easily as her rages.
She had a quarrel with Prince Lewyn, when Doran's uncle had announced his intention to join the Kingsguard.
"I thought you'd be pleased, sister," Doran heard his uncle say. "I thought you'd be pleased to have eyes and ears in King's Landing, you of all people."
"Foolishness," Mother threw at him, her voice booming. Doran could hear her pound at the table with what must be her fist. "What foolishness. Do you think I haven't thought of that? I have people in mind for grooms and ladies-in-waiting. Craftsmen and fishwives to set up shop in that stinking city. I have no one else to wed to one of our bannermen. No one else but you."
"Your Grace -"
"Leave me," Mother shouted. "Out. I am so angry, I cannot think. Out, out, I cannot look at your face, leave me to think."
But Mother saw Prince Lewyn leave Sunspear a fortnight later, kissing him on the brow and bidding him safe travels.
"Never make decisions when the heat of the anger is upon you," Mother told Doran much later, when she visited him in the Water Gardens.
"I'm never in rages, Mother," Doran assured her.
Mother's fingers were quick and deft as she peeled a blood orange. "Still, keep that in mind. It's a flaw in your mother."
Doran silently accepted a wedge of blood orange, promptly putting it in his mouth. He never worried about poisons when it was Mother giving him food, but he did feel quite sorry for the food tasters even though Maester Vir had assured him of antidotes at hand.
"Gods be good, I do hate getting angry," Mother was saying. She was sitting on a sturdy woven seat, overlooking Doran's playmates shrieking and laughing in the pools. From between the leaves of their citrusy shade, Doran could glimpse at the pale blue of the sky. Often Mother would squint at the pools, chuckling along at the games in the water, then calling a child to share fruit or lemonsweet with.
Now it was Doran's turn.
"But when I do," Mother said, nibbling on a fruit wedge, "it feels like a boiling in my skull. Be certain to know yourself enough, Doran. Be honest enough in the privacy of your mind, if nowhere else."
"Yes, Mother. I will remember."
"Very well. Return to your games. I will step inside and listen to a troupe of singers, they do calm me."
/
"Doran, Doran." Little Juhara, a merchant's daughter, clung to his leg. "Is it true that the Princess is with child?"
Doran was sat on the edge of the pool, and he leaned back on his arms. Nymella Toland and Dagos Manwoody drew closer, eager to share the news.
"It's true," Doran said, smiling at Juhara. "She might not be able to visit us for a while."
"Would you like a brother or a sister?" Lady Nymella asked. She put her arms around Juhara and squished at the little girl's cheeks.
"I'd be glad for either." He hoped Mother would not lose the baby in the womb this time, else she would rage again, and then be miserable after her rage. Mother's tears were like her laughter and her rage, Father had told him. Doran was selfishly glad that he was not there when it happened: he would be devastated if he heard Mother's loud ragged sobs.
Doran shook himself from the thought. "Mother and Father said that they would name the baby Mors if it was a boy, Elia if it was a girl."
"I like the name Mors," Dagos agreed. "I wish I was named Mors."
Doran and his friends laughed. The water of the pool was warm, turned a shivering gold by the sunlight.
"If you had your own heir," Lady Nymella said, "what you name it, Doran?"
Doran thought of Mother. He could already hear her laugh and feel her firm hand on his shoulder, but the memory was never enough when it came to the vibrancy, the sheer volume, of Mother's presence. "If I had a daughter," Doran said, "I'd name her Arianne."
fin