Here I am, after a three years of hiatus! I can't believe it. I'll be amazed if anyone remembers this short beginning of a story but here it is – a companion piece of Red As Blood and Cold As Sand. Kind of.

Take the Sands and Feel Them Slip

Sound Reason

The young king had expected that the conquest of the least populated area in Westeros would take three months or perhaps four, if things dragged for too long. He had never taken into account the possibility of a year.

Vulture's Roost, Kingsgrave… He could not say how many of his men had died there and the slain Dornishmen could surely fit the royal fleet. At the nights he spent in the lords' chambers, he saw the fires, heard the weeping of widows, orphaned mothers, old wives who had lost their entire kin in just a few days. Another kind of weeping made him turn his head away and order the musicians to go higher and higher yet because he could not deprive his men of this part of their spoil and it haunted him to hear it taken despite knowing that the women were probably screaming just to save face if they needed to save face at all. Everyone knew how lewd Dornishwomen were!

During the day, he walked around the ruined, burned villages and towns, constantly ordering his guard to stay away. He believed in his destiny but they – they only saw the hatred. A cast stone. An arrow. Poison that an old man tried to splash into his face and took his stallion instead. The magnificent beast that was the pride of the King's Landing stables died in agony a few hours later and when Daeron made his next round, the bodyless head of the wannabe murderer grinned at him from a peak. Not that it stopped the others. And not that their fate was any different.

This fact did not stop them either.

Daeron's anger grew, along with his bewilderment, for while he had met his fair share of Dornish men at-arms at the battlefields, these were smallfolks launching these desperate, ridiculous, suicidal attacks.

What did this people want? What more could its lords offer it? There wasn't even enough bounty in the settlements to please his men, so he had to write to King's Landing for additional funds. He could well imagine the face his uncle had pulled at reading his missive!

Dorne was such a poor land that going under his rule could not possibly make things worse for the people, especially the smallfolk – it could only do them good! And yet in each battle, at every siege, there were just as many bodies of peasants with makeshift – and generally bad quality – weapons as men at-arms and lords. Oh, he would give the Dornishmen this! Their lords were no cowards! Lyonel Tyrell had told him, his tone befuddled, that they had buried three Manwoodies after just one battle. Three lords. Or perhaps two lords. No one could say for sure which one of Lord Manwoody's sons had predeceased the others, they only knew that the father had perished first.

After which the new Lord Manwoody had decided against enjoying his new status. No, he had forfeited his life by not opening the gates of Kingsgrave to them. Daeron had barely decided to spare his life, taking him prisoner instead because it would send a bad message to the other Dornish lords, Aemon had insisted.

This advice had soon been proven wrong. No one was impressed with Daeron's sound reasoning – he had recently started to suspect that he was dealing with people who lacked any! His armies were advancing, his successes were known – and felt –by everyone and still these people refused to surrender. They fought to the last breath and then some, each small stronghold resisting fiercely and not a single traitor came outside to win some coins, as if the inhabitants would lose so very much if they surrendered! What are they going to lose, Daeron wondered and his pressure grew along with the obstacles.

Needless to say, all these towns and castles of stupid resistance were conquered. Daeron set them to a massacre that, according to Aemon, was even stupider than their defiance. "Who are you going to rule over? The desert?" he asked over and over as Aegon snorted and told him that he was so meek that Aegon was amazed that he had joined the Kingsguard and not the Faith, for he'd certainly make a better septon than a fighter. As if Daeron needed to play the peacemaker between his cousins right now! Returning to the more important matters, he ordered his men to butcher all down the line and as the Oakenfist told him when he first witnessed the event, he contributed to the growing of the resistance – if people would die anyway, why not give a cause? Only the Lord of Sandstone and a few tiny towns, a little more than fortified villages, surrendered – and this after the majority of the population had fled, having the foresight to take all the foods and livestock with them and burn their crops, so the seizures brought Daeron's armies next to nothing.

These were the circumstances under which he conquered Sunspear – and stupidly thought that his hour of glory meant everything was over, and the way he wished it, at this. Far from that! The Prince of Dorne might have sworn fealty but he still put obstacles in Daeron's path in many different ways. Less than a week after the submission of Sunspear, Daeron's spies started bringing the first men – and women! – serving as messengers between the Old Palace and those of note who had escaped capture.

"The Toland crone is there on the large," Aegon spat angrily at one of their regular meetings at dawn – he hated being roused so early. "And everyone says she commands great respect. When she talks, people listen, even if she proposes things that are downright harmful for them. She was the bitch who ordered to burn the provisions at the seaside warehouse, just so we won't have them."

Alyn Velaryon cast him a sharp look. This conquest had brought him a new string of celebrated victories but he seemed to have aged with years and on his face, a perpetual look of distress had settled. "We already talked about this," he said. "We're looking for her. Do we need to waste more time discussing the woman? We don't have her; we'll think of her abilities when we capture her. We have enough troubles on our hands right now."

Aegon did not seem impressed by the not so veiled rebuke. "Your fondness for the lady is well-known," he said. "But I'm afraid you're going to end up disappointed. No matter how valiantly you may fight her cause here, she isn't likely to forget that you killed her sons. Mothers are just unreasonable this way."

"I didn't kill him!" the Oakenfist almost shouted, rising from his seat, his face a mask of rage.

"Whatever," Aegon said, shrugging. "She's wed to our captive, Lord Manwoody here, and if she escapes this city, she can raise both Ghost Hill and Kingsgrave against us. I think finding her is a matter of first priority."

Daeron leaned back in this uncomfortable throne in the Tower of the Sun. Aegon had the right of it but lately, he had found himself increasingly reluctant to give an ear to any of his cousin's suggestions. There was this peculiar gleam in Aegon's eyes that told him his cousin would not be too mournful if some of these mad Dornishmen managed to make good on their intentions and leave this desert short of a conqueror.

He reached for the plate before him, checked himself, and nodded at his sampler to come close. He was getting so tired of having the man taste everything, even this blasted blood orange in front of him! His impatience made him want to test Aegon's patience as well, so he did not confirm that his cousin was right about this Toland woman. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at Aegon. "Speaking of women, what's going on with yours? I heard Princess Larra was unwell. We can ill afford any rumours that we have made her ill, you know."

Aegon shrugged, unconcerned. "It's nothing. She's breeding, I think. Naerys looked the same drab each time she was expecting."

Lord Velaryon shook his head and Aemon gave his brother a look of sheer disgust. "Do you need to talk about your wife this way? And our cousin?"

Aegon huffed but wisely avoided the topic of Naerys, instead focusing on the Prince of Dorne's sister. "This bitch is no kin of ours. Do I need to remind you that the other Larra whore, our sainted mother, sped back home without a care? This one sent her son, the Blackmont brat, to Essos but stayed here. She knew what would come and she wanted it. And in her cunt, a new life will spring. Isn't this wondrous?"

Daeron felt repulsed. He knew what had happened to the woman – not with just Aegon but a few soldiers before him. As much as he wanted to believe that Aegon was right and his conquest was over, eclipsing even Aegon the Conqueror's achievements, he knew he still had much work to do.