The skies were gray, and the air smelled of fresh snow. She spent most of her days in thick layers of clothes and wrapped in blankets on the balustrades adjoining her outer chambers. This part of her quarters afforded her a good view of Lannisport and the Sunset Sea. For the better part of the day, her eyes searched the horizon for ships. Despite the rough seas, vessels came and went aplenty, but none flew the right banners.
Before, she had made the journey from her quarters all the way up to the Ringfort once a day, more to keep herself distracted than for the view, but now, her belly was so round and heavy she could no longer climb the stairwell to the lifts. Her feet and ankles were swollen beyond recognition and her back ached constantly. All she could do now was sit and watch and ruminate. Where are you, my friend?
She was running out of time. The child inside her belly was growing restless. I should have fled when I still had the chance. But she could not leave her children. Not after what they did. To dye her hair, hide her face and pay off her guards to slip away under the cover of darkness might have been an option at some point. To take her lord husband's well-guarded heir and his golden daughter with her was not. If I had fled, they would have done it again before long, and sooner or later, he would have caught them and known them for the little dragons they are.
She had often dreamed of being a dragon lady herself as a young child. When she learned of her betrothal, it had filled her with happiness and excitement. To wed her own kin almost made her a dragon: a cousin, not a brother, but her blood all the same. "To keep the line pure, like the dragons of old did," she had overheard someone at the Rock say, and she had repeated the words proudly to anyone who would listen. Her lady mother had laughed at that. "To seal a bond that would not have needed sealing if my lord husband were a less hotheaded man. It was your grandsire's idea, long before you were born. Lord Gerold knew his youngest son well. And he was ever so afraid of a dance of lions."
Gerold the kinslayer, she thought with bitterness. Unbeknownst to you, you may yet slay me and my youngest child from the grave. She knew that was unjust toward her grandfather, but she could not find it in herself to forgive him. Her lord husband had arrived a fortnight ago from King's Landing. He has come; where are you, my Princess? I need you now more than ever.
She had met the Princess of Dorne when she joined Rhaella's court. I was fearless back then, she thought, not without sadness. I impressed her, and she took me under her wing. It had been the beginning of a deep and long friendship.
She would never forget the day she had arrived in King's Landing, a maid of three-and-ten. All the world was mine on that day. Casterly Rock was majestic, the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, towering high above the clouds more oft than not. No other seat in the realm could compare, yet to her, it had never been more than a vast prison meant to keep her small and teach her her place. King's Landing excited her in a way she had never known before: the splendor of the royal court, the lords and ladies hailing from all over the realm and far beyond to see the new king crowned, the colors, the noise, the smells – even the bad ones – she relished everything about her new-found freedom away from the disapproving gaze of her stern lord father and the watchful eyes of her lady mother.
Rhaella was of an age with her, but her eyes belonged to a much older woman. She had given birth to a son on the night of the Tragedy at Summerhall that had killed King Aegon. Those who knew the princess told Joanna that on that fateful day, she had lost whatever was left of the carefree child she had once been.
The Dornish noblewoman, heir to the Prince of Dorne, was older than her and Rhaella. She had a son who was almost Joanna's age and squired for a Dornish lord at Salt Shore, as well as two small children who had accompanied her to court. As her father's firstborn, it was her, not her brothers, who would one day rule in Dorne. Joanna had never thought it possible that a sister could inherit before a brother, but it seemed many things were done differently in the far south. Everybody knew that Doreane kept more than one paramour in King's Landing, yet no-one dared confront her about it.
Then, there was Aerys. Whenever he saw her, his deep purple eyes had lit up. Aerys would invite her over to dine with him and his friends, refill her cup with wine and laugh at her jokes. He embodied everything her parents had denied her at Casterly Rock. She would flirt with him and tease him and once in her cups, she even dared him to put a little dragon in her belly. "Would you have me dishonor you?" He asked, half mocking, but she was a lioness of Casterly Rock and not easily cowed. "If you think my honor lies between my legs, you are a fool, Your Grace." "Hear, hear!" The Dornish princess said, a wicked smile on her olive-skinned face, "finally a lady at court with some sense in her." The woman's praise had made her beam.
With Prince Aerys's help, it was easy to slip away from the guards her father had sent to accompany her. He took her maidenhead on the night his father was crowned king. He was two years older than her and had sired a child, yet he was just as nervous as her and not half as good at hiding it. She and Aerys made love in secret whenever and wherever they could after that, even in the throne room underneath Vhagar's skull once. The excitement of doing something so brazen had made up for the discomfort of the hard floor. The Kingsguard who were never far away disapproved of their relationship, she could tell, but they were sworn to secrecy. Doreane made sure she drank her moon tea regularly.
They started calling Joanna the Dornish lioness soon after, and she took it as a compliment. The more she learned of the southernmost kingdom, the more she wished she could have been born Dornish. To the Dornish, women seemed to be people, not brood mares. In Dorne, a woman was a man's equal. King's Landing wasn't Dorne, but surrounded by her new friends, it almost felt like it.
These were her happy years; she flourished, young and beautiful, with Aerys by her side. She knew she could never be his wife; she was no dragon lady, but she would have happily remained with him as his mistress. When she visited Casterly Rock after the Blackfyre pretenders had been defeated, she even asked her mother to convince Lord Tytos to break her betrothal. "My lord father is dead," she argued, quite convincingly, as she thought at the time. "He will remain loyal to Lord Tytos in his grave. Brother will not fight brother. The betrothal can be put aside." I was a child, young, headstrong, foolish, and in love. Lady Marla had been appalled, but if she ever realized the reason for her daughter's bold demand, she did not act on it. Joanna was sent back to King's Landing a fortnight later.
She had tried her best not to think of the prospect of wedding a stranger, kin or not. She had known her cousin as a young child, but he had always been too old to play with her and had been sent to court when she was no older than six. He was knighted soon after she had arrived in King's Landing and hardly ever spent time at court after that. First, there was the War of the Ninepenny Kings, which claimed her lord father's life. After that, he traveled to the Westerlands to reclaim the debt owed to House Lannister against Lord Tytos's better judgment. The tall, austere man who returned to take his place as Hand of the King was a stranger to her. All I knew of him were the stories. "The Tarbecks got what they deserved," her cousin Genna told her once, "but there was no honor in what Ty did at Castamere." "That one is calm on the surface and ruled by raging pride on the inside," Doreane had said with a frighteningly troubled look on her face, "you will need to be careful not to cross him."
The stories filled her with dread, but the prospect of being caged again by a man named Lannister had terrified her just as much. "I do not wish to be wed," she told Aerys. "You are the King. You can order my cousin to marry another lady. If I absolutely must be wed, I can take Doreane's brother as my husband." She did not know Prince Lewyn well, but the princess always spoke fondly of her younger brother, so he couldn't be half bad.
"Ser Tywin is a good man," Aerys had said sincerely. "He is my friend and my Hand. He will be the Lord of Casterly Rock one day. He will protect you and your House. He is a good match." Those were unusually solemn words coming from her dragon. The tenderness in his voice when he spoke of her cousin took her by surprise. "I do not love him," she insisted. Aerys smiled his disarming smile. "And I do not love my sister, yet we are wed all the same. You can marry Tywin and give him heirs while we remain lovers." How I wanted to believe him at the time. "What if Ser Tywin feels differently about that?" He sneered at that. "I am his King!"
She remembered her wedding day well. She had sat next to her cousin for hours during the gifting ceremony doing her best to act like a lady while greeting the guests and accepting lavish presents. He comported himself with cool gracefulness, making small talk with the lords and ladies, paying them compliments and praising their gifts, but he never so much as looked at her once. Separated from her friends, she was bored out of her wits.
Gentle Lord Tytos took the place of her deceased father and led her into the sept to be wed to his son and heir. Like a dragon lady. Only the colors were different, red and gold instead of red on black. Ser Tywin stood almost a head taller than her. It was then and there that she noticed him truly for the first time. He looked a king in his cloak of crimson and gold. The light that shone through the colored windows of the Great Sept of Baelor fell on his golden hair and lent him an unearthly glow.
She felt her stomach flutter when he wrapped his cloak around her, resting his hands on her shoulders for just a heartbeat longer than was needed. She had lain with no other man than Aerys, and she found the thought of bedding him oddly intriguing. After they had both said their vows, he placed a chaste kiss on her lips. A kiss to seal a pact, ever so proper. Somehow, the brief cool touch of his lips only excited her more. Cool lion and fiery dragon, on my wedding day, I was convinced I could have them both. She had smiled, and when her eyes met his, he smiled back at her, his gold-flecked green eyes smiling with him.
A few hours into the wedding feast, Joanna was deep enough in her cups that she felt lightheaded, though she was not half as drunk as Aerys, who had guzzled down more wine than she knew a man could. She glanced over at her lord husband who was still sitting on the dais, talking to Ser Barristan and Lord Redwyne, taking small sips from his cup every so often, looking quite at ease in the company of the two older men. That was, until Aerys started clamoring for the bedding.
"Pity the lord's right to the first night has been abolished," the King had proclaimed loudly, and the hall erupted in laughter. "If the Lady Joanna gives her permission, I'm sure it can be reinstated," Doreane japed, "but only if I may join you. I would not have my Dornish lioness go anywhere without me!" Joanna laughed at her friend's jest. The Dornishwoman leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her cheeks. "Pretend to be a shy maid when you bed him," she whispered in her ear, "Let him be your knight in shining armor. He will like that." And then, before she knew it, someone grabbed her and she was carried off.
Aerys had been drunk and rowdy. The King was taking her wedding a lot harder than she – or he himself, most like – had expected. At first, she smiled when he grabbed her between her legs and pinched her breast while unlacing her dress and laughed at his bawdy comments, but then she noticed he did not even look at her. This was not her lover, this was an angry stranger. She pushed his hand away the next time he tried to touch her, and he kept a safe distance afterwards, mumbling angrily to himself. She was glad when the ordeal was over and she was tucked under the blanket next to her newly-wed husband. He, too, seemed tense, though that did not surprise her. He's not the type of man to enjoy being carried off, undressed and taunted by a horde of hooting women. She had been in the front and so distracted that she had never even looked at him. Somehow, she regretted that now. It must have been a sight to behold.
Behind the door, people were still jeering and shouting, though she could no longer make out Aerys. She turned to him, smiling. "My lord, we must consummate the marriage." There was a look of irritation on his face for a heartbeat, but then he nodded in agreement. "Lie on your back, my lady" he told her politely, "and spread your legs apart. You can bend them slightly, if it pleases you." She found his formality strangely arousing. She wanted nothing more than to flip him onto his back and ride and tease him to see how long he could control himself. And then she would fuck all the correctness out of him until they would both be moaning in pleasure. But she remembered Doreane's words and the look in his eyes when she had been the one to speak up and tell him to get on with it.
"This might hurt a little, but I will be as gentle as possible." She was soaking wet by then. The last thing she wanted him to be was gentle. Does he truly think I still have my maidenhead? She had thought with bewilderment. I am a woman of seven-and-ten! He seemed startled by the lack of resistance as he entered her, and more so when she pulled her legs up and wrapped them around him to guide him and pull him closer with each thrust, but oddly enough, he went along with it willingly. It was the most control she was like to get on that first night. She watched his face as his breathing grew labored and he began to moan softly as they were rocking back and forth. And then, before she knew it, he had spent himself inside of her and it was all over.
If this had happened with Aerys, she would have asked him to use his mouth or his hands to see the deed finished on her end as well, but she did not want to confront him with something she knew would make him uncomfortable just yet. "You did not bleed," he noted. That killed whatever lust she had still felt for his touch a moment ago. "I've taken up riding. A saddle took my maidenhead, I'm afraid." He looked unsure what to make of that. "You... you seem... experienced." "Doreane taught me so I could please you on our wedding night, my lord," she said calmly. He seemed appalled by that. "A woman should not bed another woman!" Joanna sighed. "I did not bed her. She explained to me what to do." It was only half a lie; Doreane always liked to talk and banter when we shared a bed.
It took her all her strength not to lose patience. You will need to be careful not to cross him, she had reminded herself of Doreane's words. She lowered her eyes. "You intimidate me, my lord. I feared I would disappoint you. I did not think I would be- ...I beg your pardon if I angered you. All I want is to please you, my lord." He cupped her face with his hands and looked her in the eye. Let him be the knight in shining armor. "You could never disappoint me, my lady. You are the best that has happened to me in a long time." The sincerity in his voice startled her. He drew her closer and kissed her. It was a slow and gentle kiss, but it had nothing of the innocence of the brief touch of lips that had sealed their marriage for all the realm to see. As he caressed her bare breasts and tenderly parted her lips, Joanna let herself go and went along with it. Perhaps, she had thought, I can work with this after all.
It had taken her several days before Aerys would even speak to her. "The way you looked at him," he said, his voice shaking, "it was love." "It was lust," Joanna corrected him, angered by his petulance. Lust and curiosity and the strange allure of solemn correctness. "Lust or love, I am your King, you are mine!" Aerys bristled with anger. That offended Joanna more than she could say. "I am a woman of my own. I belong to nobody. If this really bothers you so much, you should have done as I told you and annulled the betrothal." She was no longer sure she would have wanted that, she realized with surprise as she spoke the words. They fought, their first fight in a long time, and both left vexed and angry.
He did not come to her until a full fortnight later, but he apologized for his outburst. They asked the Kingsguard to keep the doors to Aerys's bedchambers locked. She did not dare take any moon tea for fear that her husband had already got her with child, so she had pleasured Aerys with her mouth and he had done her the same favor. It felt good to be with someone again who not only understood that she, too, had needs, but who enjoyed fulfilling them. She had tried to gently guide her husband to do the same, but despite slow progress, it always seemed like one step forward two steps back to her. With Aerys, by contrast, it was as if the gods had made him for the sole purpose of pleasuring her.
When her moon blood came, the first thing she did was to look for Aerys. Her flow was strong, and they made a terrible mess, but she did not regret it. "I've missed riding you," she whispered in his ear. She made him last for almost half the morning, an unusual feat even for her dragon. By the time they were done, the bed looked as if she had given birth. Aerys laughed at that and left the cleaning to his chamber servants while they took a bath together. With the benefit of hindsight, she had realized the carelessness of that decision.
Most like it was one of the servants who had betrayed them, though Joanna would never find out for sure. Queen Rhaella had spoken the words, but the thought had been her husband's, she was certain. Rhaella had never begrudged her the love she shared with her brother-husband. She had born him an heir to please their father, but everyone at court knew she preferred the company of others over that of her brother in bed and harbored no ill feelings when he chose to do the same. Joanna had protested her dismissal from King's Landing with Rhaella, who had only given her a sad smile, and with her lord husband, who had rebuffed her brusquely: "I will not suffer disobedience in my wife, neither toward myself nor toward our Queen." In the end, she had left the royal court for Casterly Rock, seething.
If all goes well, if their ship makes it in time, if the child does not rush, I can spare Cersei my fate, she thought, watching the gray water of the Sunset Sea down below her, the powerful waves crashing into the Rock looking like little more than thin white lines from up above. She will be a woman of her own in Dorne, respected by her husband as an equal. But all the ifs and buts made her anxious, and with each day that passed, she felt less certain that her plans would work out. A sudden gust of wind made her shiver. She pushed herself up from her chair and slowly limped back inside.