AN: So, I only ship crackships in this fandom. And my favorite is Oberyn/Lyanna. So I decided to write something for them, because sometimes you just need to write your crackships. If you like happy endings, please stop after section 10. Happy reading:
Sand and Snow
i.
It's kisses like whispers against her skin. It's slick heat and murmurs and the way he touches her just right. By the time he enters her, she's all but begging, and to her surprise experiences none of the pain she's heard so many whisper of. All she feels is a pleasant fullness, and soon that becomes whimpers and sighs and pleasant turns to pleasure into ecstasy.
"I will not marry you."
He had been blunt about that, from the very beginning. From the moment he caught her with the shield and laughed and began his pursuit. He made it clear that he wanted her, that he would pursue, but that it would ultimately be her choice to give in, and that, once made, it would be her consequences to bare.
"I wouldn't have you anyway."
She kisses his throat and he moulds his hands to her breasts. He is all heat and dark skin. The desert to her arctic, and she thinks, now, that she understands Robert and Brandon and the many women who walk through their tents. She understands those women even more.
This is heaven, and though it cannot last forever, she will have this taste of freedom before she is forced into life as a gentle Southron woman. Tamed and broken and no longer a fierce wolf of the north, relegated instead to a stag of the south.
"You could come to Dorne," he tells her on their last day in Harrenhal. "You would like it there."
"Wolves aren't made for the desert," she replies with a sad smile, because isn't his offer tempting?
"Wolves aren't made for stages, either."
ii.
It's months after Harrenhal when she begins to swell with his child.
Robert rages. Brandon does as well, though not for the same reasons. Robert wants to know why.He asks it constantly.
Why, Lya? Why would you do this to me? To us?
She wants to tell them that there was never an us. That he was the man her father chose, and she had resigned herself to that. Until Harrenhal. Until warm hands and dark skin and kisses, then more, in private, hidden places.
Brandon wants the name of the man that dishonored his sister. He wants to know who he should run through. Lya refuses to give it to him.
She may be ruined, no man may have her now, but it is the closest to freedom she has come since lying in his arms. She will love this child, the proof that, for a brief while, she experienced something wondrous. And he, she is sure it will be a boy, will grow up to be a wolf. A wolf with the desert in his eyes, but winter in his heart.
Then her father makes his decision.
"You cannot keep the child. He will be fostered out. The Umbers, perhaps. Or the Mormonts. They have always been loyal. And you… you will be sent to Riverrun. Perhaps we can yet save something of your honor, and your good-sister has agreed to it."
Lyanna holds her swelling belly and glares at her father. She rages against him and her brothers that stand by his side, Ned in solemn agreement, Brandon in heated anger, because he still wants the name she refuses to give.
Lyanna glares at them all, then stiffly walks away. She knows better than to reason with stubborn men, particularly stubborn Stark men.
You could come to Dorne.
It will cause chaos. It could possibly destroy her father. But Lyanna finds that, for the life growing within her, she would watch the world burn… but she's a wolf. And wolves don't burn.
She would watch the world freeze.
iii.
"Oberyn Martell."
The name isn't spoken to Bran, but rather to Benjen. Her younger brother is the only one she can count on, the only one who might possibly help.
"The Red Viper?" Ben's voice is incredulous, his eyes wide. "Lya, what were you thinking."
"I was thinking that I didn't want my only experience to be found in the bed of a husband that would go back to his whores as soon as he finished. I was thinking that I wanted to be touched by a man who didn't worship a perfect vision of me, but wanted the actual me, flaws and all. And that Oberyn wanted to be that man."
"Why are you telling me?" Ben looks resigned, because he knows Lya too well. They've been partners-in-crime too often for him to not know.
"Please, Ben, I need your help."
Ben closes his eyes, and for a moment, Lya thinks he won't help. But then sighs and nods his head.
"I don't want details, just the bare minimum to get this done."
She kisses his cheek and thanks him. Ben curses himself for being so very weak in the face of Lya's pleading grey eyes.
iv.
Oberyn is with his daughters, including the fourth and newest, little Sarella, who was just months old, when the letter arrives.
"Who is it from?" he asks his brother, surprised that Doran himself would bring a missive to him.
"A Stark," Doran replies with a curious look, or at least as curious as Doran gets. "Which is why I brought it. What reason does Rickon Stark, or any of his brood, have to write to you?"
Lyanna, is what Oberyn thinks, because who else would write to him from the north? It has been months since Harrenhal, but he could not forget his grey-eyed wolf. At night, he still awakes, sweating from dreams of how she fell apart in his arms, of how reactive she had been to his every touch.
When he first arrived back in Sunspear, he had self-deprecatingly thought that Lyanna Stark had ruined him for all women. Something easily proven false, but it was the closest to a romantic thought Oberyn had ever come, and even now he remembered the she-wolf with a hint of longing.
He opens the letter, hungrily awaiting Lya's letter. Only it's not from her. Oh, it is certainly about her. How she found herself pregnant, how Robert Baratheon (the fool) would no longer have her, how her Lord father planned on foisting her bastard onto a bannerman and sending Lyanna away.
It is signed Benjen Stark, but the words are from Lya, when he asks for Oberyn to find a way to take her to Dorne.
It is obvious why the youngest Stark sent it, of course. Rickon will be checking Lya's letters, of course, but probably not the younger son's.
"You have that glint," Doran observes. "That look that tells me I am not about to like what you will say. What does the letter say?"
In lieu of answering, Oberyn simply hands over the letter, and walks to rejoin his daugters. As he kneels down, he hears Doran begin to curse.
"How would you like another sister? Perhaps even a brother?"
v.
The child, a boy she names Torrhen, because he needs a strong name to live the life of a bastard, is three months old when Rickon decides it is time to send him to the Mormonts. Lya would be panicked, is angered, but Ben had given her a letter at the start of the week. Her father can make all the plans he wishes, but none will come to fruition.
She has been on her best behaviour and her family has grown complacent. They will regret that, when the awake to find that she, and Torrhen, have disappeared. Even Ben doesn't know of the plans, had simply handed her Oberyn's letter and washed his hands of the situation.
"I still will not marry you," Oberyn tells her when they stop, miles and miles from Winterfell where no one knows her and they pretend to be a wedded couple. He his lying on the bed they will share for the night, Torrhen held in his arms. Her little boy is all Stark, a true wolf of the north, except for his eyes.
His eyes are all Oberyn – desert and viper and she wonders if either of her elder brothers had noticed that. If they had, they had kept it well hidden, so she thinks not.
"I still wouldn't have you," she replies easily with a smile, joining him and their son. When he sees his mother, Torrhen gurgles and reaches for her, and she takes him, lets him have her breast. Oberyn watches with something close to affection and she smiles. He opens his mouth, as thought to say something, then closes it once more with a furrowed brow.
"You will like Dorne," he finally says.
"So you told me once before," is her reply.
vi.
Doran welcomes her, though his expression his weary. The North will not take this insult well, they all know that.
"If you two would marry, it would do much to prevent tensions," he informs them both.
"She won't have me," Oberyn replies.
"He won't marry me," Lya says at the exact same time.
Doran closes his eyes, and Lya would feel sorry for him, only she is holding her son and in a land that allows her freedom for the first time in her life. She is too relieved for pity.
"This could very well destroy us all," Doran says, and Lya shakes her head.
"Dorne is a world away from Winterfell. Not even for wounded pride would my father march this far south."
Doran hopes she is right, that her words aren't merely wishful thinking.
vii.
His daughters love her.
They had been wary at first, uncertain of the pale-skinned northern woman and her equally pale son. But the boy had their eyes, and the girls loved family. So they accepted Torrhen easily, and once that was done, it wasn't so very hard to accept his mother. She was as wild as them, and so the eldest two – Obara and Nymeria – decided that, really, she was a Viper at heart anyway, for all that she wore the skin of a wolf.
"Perhaps you're really just wolves at heart," Lyanna teases back, and both girls look at her solemnly.
"No," Obara declares.
"We're Vipers," agrees Nymeria.
"Just like our father."
Lya smiles and allows them to win, but inside she thinks that they're wrong. She still has the heart of a wolf, just as Jon will… but perhaps they were never meant to be wolves of the snow.
Perhaps she was always meant for sun and heat, just as Jon was born into it.
viii.
The letter arrives from Winterfell.
Benjen has finally spoken, or perhaps Ned and Bran finally realized why Jon's eyes looked so familiar, but either way they know that Lya has fled to Dorne. That Oberyn is the father of her child.
"He demands you wed," Doran says. "Or he will go to the king and demand reparations. Wed, or fight Brandon Stark to the death."
"My father would never allow Bran to do that," Lya responds with a frown. "He's the heir."
"And both are out for blood. Clear heads are not ruling in Winterfell. Not right now," Doran replies. "You two have a choice to make."
ix.
"You swore you would never marry me," Lya says that night as they lay in each other's arms. It has been four months since she arrived in Dorne, and they've loved each other passionately in that time. And fought just as passionately. No one angers her like Oberyn does.
"And you swore you would never have me," Oberyn replies. "Yet here we are. Our son in the nursery and another one the way."
Lya's hands dart down to her stomach. She had only begun to suspect herself, would be in the early days, if it's even true, yet here is Oberyn making declarations.
"I don't… how did you know?"
"I know everything," Oberyn replies with a smile, and Lyanna scowls at him and hits his arm. He laughs and rolls over, so that he rises above her. "Simply suspicions. You refused the duck tonight. You love duck."
"Not when I'm pregnant," she admits with a sigh. "It was the same with Torrhen. I don't want to take away your freedom, Oberyn."
"And you will not. We will continue as we have, simply married, and when we tire of each other-"
"You'll take other lovers," Lyanna finishes, and she hates that there is a hint of bitterness in her voice. Isn't this what Dorne is about, freedom and being able to do as she wished?
"Actually, I was going to say we will find ways to make it fresh once more. I dislike the thought of another man touching you, if I'm not there."
Oberyn had never hidden that his preferences ran towards both male and female, and his words raise a curiosity in Lyanna she never thought herself capable of. She looks at Oberyn with curiosity, wondering what it would be like, to see his strong body against another man's.
"Oh, that raises my little wolf's curiosity, does it not?" Oberyn smirks and leans down to kiss her. "So, shall we give Torrhen a true name?"
Lyanna's response is to pull him into a kiss.
x.
When the Starks arrive in King's Landing with blood in their eyes, ready to kill Oberyn and any Martell that might get in their way. Brandon declares as much loudly, and Lya rolls her eyes as she rocks Torrhen.
Her family bursts into the room she and Oberyn share, and Obara and Nymeria, who have accompanied them, look at them with wide, Martell eyes.
"Obara, would you and Nymeria take Torrhen and put him down for his nap?" Lyanna asks, handing her son to the girl. They like to watch their brother sleep, she knows, and so they happily take the boy and leave.
"Lya," Brandon breathes out, relief stark in his eyes. "You worried us, you blasted girl!"
"I would suggest being very, very careful of how you speak to my wife, Stark," Oberyn says coolly, entering the room through the door the girls just left through.
"Wife?" Rickon says, coming up short. Her father has ever been more even-tempered than Brandon, has always been careful to not let his temper get the better of him, though, apparently, he nearly had over this.
"We married before we left Dorne," Lyanna says, getting to her feet and smoothing down her dress. It is Stark grey, but decorated with Martell suns. "So you can put down your sword, Bran, and say hello to your new good-brother."
"He got you pregnant!" Bran bursts out, but he lowers his blade. "He got you pregnant and waited for over a year before he actually married you."
"It took a while before I agreed to it," Lyanna replies with a nod and a smile that has Bran gritting his teeth. "Oh, what did you think I would do? Let you take my son from me and foist me off on Catelyn Tully? You should have known better. All of you should have known better."
"And you shouldn't have involved Benjen in your foolishness," Rickon says gravely.
"Oh, father, didn't you get what you wanted? You have a daughter married to a son of the south. A Prince, even."
"So now you tell me why you truly married me," Oberyn scoffs as he joins her, wrapping an arm around her waist and smiling down at her.
"Princess Lyanna. It has a certain ring to it."
She looks at her family, and they seem to have calmed down. Bran is looking between her and Oberyn, his expression unreadable at first, but then he gives her a small smile.
"I suppose we should have known better. A regular courtship and marriage… it just wasn't meant for you."
Lya merely shrugs and hugs Oberyn's waist, and feels relief that there will be peace between her families.
xi.
Life is good. She has another child, this one named Elia, for the queen. Lyanna had met her Good sister in King's Landing, had come to love the woman as much as her husband did, and she felt pride when Elia had met her niece and been told her name and promptly grown teary eyed.
Life is good, until Rhaegar Targaryen shows that he is as mad as his father ever was.
While Lyanna had been falling in love with Oberyn, building a family with him, and befriending her good sister, the prince had become obsessed with her, deciding that she was the only woman who could possibly be the ice in his crazed prophecy of three headed dragons and ice and fire.
She is locked away from her husband and children and raped until her belly swells with a child that will be born with pale hair and purple eyes rather than the dark skin or grey eyes that it should have had.
The North raises its banners.
So does Dorne.
In the midst, the old king finally loses the last vestiges of his sanity. When she learns of her father and Brandon's fates, she tries to claw Rhaegar's eyes out.
Then she is in the birthing bed, and it is nothing like Torrhen or Elia's birth. It's harder and there's more blood, and she knows she won't survive this. In the end, Ned is there and so is Oberyn. And she clings tightly to them both as she pushes child and her own life out of her.
She knows that she can't ask Oberyn to raise her child. That it wouldn't be fair.
She knows it's not fair to Ned, either. But he is her only hope. She hates Rhaegar for ruining her happiness, but she can't hate this child.
"Promise me, Ned," she sobs into him, and she feels Ned nod against her.
"Like my own, Lya. I swear it."
She lets out a sigh of relief, and turns eyes clouded with pain to Oberyn.
"I'm so, so sorry," she whispers.
"You have nothing to apologize for," he replies, taking her from Ned and holding her close.
"I thought I could fight… but I can't. I'm so sorry, Oberyn. Torrhen and Elia-"
"Will know that their mother was brave and fierce and loved them so, so much," Oberyn promises, and his voice hitches as he buries his face in her hair.
"I love you," she whispers.
"I love you, too," he replies, but she never hears the words.
Lyanna Martell is dead.
xii.
Lyanna is dead and so is Rhaegar, killed by Robert Baratheon of all people, and Jaime Lannister has broken his vows to kill Mad King Aerys.
Some call for Robert to take the throne, but Doran and the might of Dorne refuse that, say that Aegon's claim is legitimate. To Oberyn's surprise, Eddard Stark, new Warden of the North, supports them rather than his old friend.
"I won't have her death be a means to creating a new legacy," Eddard tells Oberyn fiercely when he finds him in the Godswood of King's Landing. "I won't have Robert or anyone else use Lyanna as a Martyr to destroy your sister and her children, not when Lya loved them so much."
He is holding Lya's son, the one Rhaegar forced on her, and it hurts Oberyn to look at him. He is all Stark, not a hint of Targaryen in him. Oberyn wants to hate the boy, had planned to… but how can he?
He has Lyanna's eyes.
"When the boy is old enough, we will foster him in Dorne. Tell him and your lady wife the truth of his birth. I will understand if you want no one else to know."
"I would have thought you wouldn't," Eddard admits. "I wouldn't think you'd want anything to do with him."
"He looks like you," Oberyn replies simply, and Eddard understands what he truly means – he looks like Lyanna – without being told. "We are open to bastards in the south… and I could… I couldn't hate anything that is part of Lya."
"He will be fostered with you," Eddard promises with a nod. "And he'll be raised as a Stark until then."
There will be nothing Targaryen in him, is the unspoken statement between brothers.
They separate then. Eddard to return to Winterfell and his new wife and son. Oberyn to his children and sister and niece and nephew. His sister has fallen apart, destroyed by the fact that her husband destroyed the good sister she loved so very much. She needs him. His daughters and son need him.
He pauses once, looking back at the Godswood. Lyanna had always prayed to the Old Gods, had been raising Torrhen in the ways of both the old and new gods, so he could make his own choice. Would have done the same with Elia.
Now she wouldn't get the chance.
AN: I warned you. I always got the sense that Rhaegar was pretty big on that prophecy, and so Lyanna still ended up being the ice to his fire and dying. But she did get some happiness before. And Elia and her children lived. This was supposed to be happy… until I finished section 10 and the next ones happened. So… apologies.