When Maester Caleotte had gone to Doran to tell him of his misstep in front of Sansa, Doran could only sigh and put his face in his hands. "It is a sign from the Gods," he said. "First Lyanna Stark and now Sansa..." A lifetime ago, the Starks and the Martells had as little common ground between them as was conceivable, the two families ruling the different extremities of the Seven Kingdoms. It was only when Rhaegar Targaryen had the audacity to bring Lyanna Stark to the Tower of Joy when the first contact between Dorne and the North had been made in the previous generation.

Doran had remembered that day like it was yesterday. Oberyn had punched Rhaegar hard in anger that he had brought the woman he had shamed their sister with at the tourney at Harrenhall with, but he had not laid a hand on Lyanna. One look at Lyanna's eyes and everything was made clear. They were in love. How could they, the Dornish, who took so much pride in free love, have rejected them?

"She deserves to know the truth," Doran told Oberyn, who said nothing of the matter. "Everything her family has suffered, every lash on her back, has been resulted from Ned Stark's insistence that none of this can be revealed. She is both a Stark and a Martell now, even. You cannot deny this from her."

Oberyn sighed. "I don't know what my wife would do when she knows what had transpired," he told his brother. Sansa was... evolving. When he had first met her, she was the Queen's little dove, trapped in a gilded cage with spikes ever turning towards her. She had fought in her own way to survive and survive she did. When she became his wife, she steadily gained her footing. She began to dare to stare Cersei down even in public and he knew that the Queen was more than bristled. Cersei had started to feel a twinge of fear in her, which was probably why she had decided that he should not survive Tyrion Lannister's trial by combat. If Sansa had been widowed, then she would have to be returned to their care until they found her a suitable husband. He could not deny that she had shielded him with her body because she too had fallen for him, but deep down inside, he knew that it was her survival instinct that drove her as well.

"Wolves often act drastically when they are trapped. Your wife will have a choice to make," Doran told his brother. "Bring her to my study, Oberyn. I will tell Sansa everything she needs to know." It was a command, and Oberyn knew it well. Doran had decided. Oberyn could only obey.

He had Areo Hotah push him into his study. It was a fairly simple room, compared to the rest of the rooms in the Water Gardens. "Your brother has been completely taken by his wife," Hotah said. Oberyn had been like that in his early days with Ellaria, and now, there was a repeat of the same with Sansa.

"Oberyn might be a lusty man, but his heart is rarely opened," Doran said. "Where Ellaria would be a balm to him, Sansa would be an even greater challenge to him. She will be his equal one day, his wife in every sense of the word." His sister-in-law was only beginning to exercise what skills Oberyn's presence in her life had given her. When she has had the true taste of what Dorne could do to shape a woman, he was sure that his brother would be willing to lick the floor clean for her to stand on.

Sansa and Oberyn had arrived in Doran's study not too long after he had arrived with Hotah. Her lips were slightly swollen, no doubt the doing of theither Oberyn or Ellaria. "Brother," she greeted with a warm smile and moved forwards to kiss his cheek as he did hers.

"Sister," he returned. "I believe that you have chanced upon some... information between your family and the Targaryens in your lessons with Maester Caleotte yesterday?" he asked her. Unlike Oberyn, his eyes were of a greenish hazel hue. It had come from their father, who had some Andal blood in him. Sansa had found them to be quite enchanting. While Oberyn's was dark and mysterious, passionate in both fury and seduction, Doran's had been cool and calm. Within their depths were a great amount of pain, sealed, but not forgotten. If Oberyn was murderous when pushed to, she deigned to see what Doran was capable of in that same state.

"Yes," Sansa replied. "Maester Caleotte said that there was a Stark with Targaryen blood..."

From one of the drawers of his desk, Doran retrieved a piece of parchment kept between two pieces of glass and brought it to his sister-in-law. "Read this, and all would be clear," he told her. Both Martell brothers watched her as she read the contents of the parchment. At first, she had gasped, and then, she fell silent. When she returned the parchment to Doran there were tears in her eyes and he knew that it took every fiber of Oberyn's being not to go to her side to kiss them away. His brother was the best person to comfort a woman, after all.

"My Aunt Lyanna was... legally married to Rhaegar Targaryen?" she asked in disbelief. "And their child is Jon?"

Doran nodded. "The Targaryens often had more than one wife," he said. "Like us, they believed in the Faith of the Seven, but like us, they took what they liked from religion and follow what they wanted from their own Valyrian customs. Polygamy was one of them. Elia was a sickly woman from the day she was born. She was bedridden for half a year following the birth of Rhaenys and had almost died birthing Aegon." He remembered the panic that swept through Dorne when they had heard the news. Thankfully, the Gods were kind and decided to allow Elia to live for a time. "The maesters said that Elia cannot conceive again lest she loses her life."

"When Rhaegar Targaryen knew of it, he took the opportunity to woo his next possible target, Lyanna Stark," Oberyn continued. "I was at the Tourney of Harrenhal, when Rhaegar crowned your aunt as the Lady of Love and Beauty with a garland of blue winter roses. The crowds went silent and there was no joy. I wanted to knock sense into our beautiful prince but Elia stopped me. She told me that she had permitted it. Rhaegar was convinced that he needed another child and she could not give him one. When he brought Lyanna to Dorne, they had first come to Sunspear where we met him. I'd punched him for our sister, too."

"What did my aunt say?" Sansa asked the two brothers.

"She said that she would stay in Dorne, as a measure of good faith," Doran answered. "She did not seek to supplant Elia, but she had loved Rhaegar. If a child was what he wanted then she would provide it, and if a prince needed a child, that marriage had to be legal. We thanked the Gods that he was a Targaryen and he could take many wives."

The rest of the story was well-known. Rhaegar Targaryen was not present during most of Robert's Rebellion although he had been said to be it's perpetrator. When war swept across the Seven Kingdoms, Rhaegar had kept Lyanna in the Tower of Joy for a year, and only appeared in the battlefield at the Battle of the Trident, where Robert Baratheon claimed his life. After the war had ended, her father went to the Tower of Joy only to find it guarded by three of the Kingsguard, all of them Rhaegar's greatest friends. Her father had narrowly won the fight against the Kingsguard, who were the greatest warriors of Westeros at the time, and found her aunt dying

"She made Father promise her something," Sansa recalled from what little she knew about her aunt. "He had always refused to tell anyone what it was, and you're telling me that my half-brother Jon Snow, is actually my cousin, Jon Targaryen?" If Jon really was a Targaryen, then it would mean that he should be king and not the Baratheons. If the world had seen what she had seen, all the bloodshed in the world, the previous one and the current one, would be for naught.

"Lord Eddard Stark was made to keep this secret by his sister," Doran told her. "She feared that Robert Baratheon would one day try to kill her son and asked him to raise him as his bastard."

However, Sansa heaved a quiet sigh. "It doesn't matter anymore," she said. "Jon's taken the black, he can't inherit anything when he's joined the Night's Watch." She had read her histories. Many years ago, a Targaryen prince had no love for the Iron Throne and studied to be a maester in the Citadel. When his brother ascended the throne, he took the vows of the Night's Watch to ensure that there was no suspicion that he had any eyes on it at all.

"At times, I thank the Gods for his decision," Doran said. "Having another Targaryen player makes things... complicated." The Targaryens placed male succession above all females. If Jon Snow really was Jon Targaryen, his claim to the throne was stronger than that of Daenerys'. However, he did not have dragons and she had three.

"Jon won't stake any claim," Sansa told them. "He's too much like Father and Robb. They value honor above everything. Even if you told him that he would be made a Stark and he could rule Winterfell, he wouldn't do it." Jon was raised under the shadow of her father. He might have been a bastard but he was of the North, through and through. However, there was something that she did not understand. "But... why would Rhaegar need another child?"

Oberyn answered that question. "Elia said that he was obsessed over a prophecy, that the he was the Prince that was Promised, and that the Dragon must have three heads. He thought that Rhaenys and Aegon were the first two and needed another," he said, with some amount of bile. At the end of the day, it was evident that he was not happy with the way Rhaegar had somewhat treated his sister like a broodmare. "She had loved Rhaegar so much that she would allow him to take another wife."

"So, he took Lyanna as his second wife, and here you kept the marriage contract, because Elia had permitted it," Sansa concluded. She sat down on the chair nearest to Oberyn and felt his hands on her shoulders. Jon, poor, confused Jon was the center of all this conflict and thanks to their father, he was innocent of everything. To him, he was still the bastard of Winterfell, who had joined the Watch to find his own place in the world. "Jon... knows nothing..."

"And he will continue to know nothing unless all is revealed to him," Doran said. "Many had died to protect this secret, and Lord Eddard brought it to his grave, you must do the same." If the Lannisters knew that there was a Targaryen on the Wall, their agents would find and kill him before he knew that he was one. If Daenerys knew that she had a nephew, her claim on the Iron Throne would be weakened. If the North knew, they would have promptly marched to the Wall and retrieve Jon as the claimant that they would back. There was no doubt that they would rather see Lyanna's child on the throne than any other.

Sansa nodded. "I will bring it to mine as well," she promised them. "You have my word, I won't tell it to anyone." Oberyn's hands on her shoulders soon became his arms around her waist, chin resting on the arch of her neck. "Not even Jon."

"I thank you, dear sister," Doran said. "Now you understand that it is you that Oberyn must marry. There has been much strife and sadness between our families. I had wanted to mend it, to forge a new bond between the North and Dorne. Had it not been announced that you were to marry Joffrey, we would have made the suit as quickly as possible. Your coming to us has been more than clever politics."

It was the Gods, Sansa thought to herself. Be it the Old Gods, or the New, they were cruel beings who liked to see the world suffer. All of them were naught but playthings to them. But in a way, she had been happy, if not overjoyed, that she was sent into Oberyn's arms. "Thank you," she murmured, breaking into unexplained tears.

No one hushed her, for not all tears were evil. They knew that those tears were the tears of a burden long shared by her father and themselves, they were the tears for her love for her family. "I will be taking her back now," Oberyn announced, and picked her up as he had done on their wedding day. "See you soon, brother."

Doran nodded and watched Oberyn leave with Sansa in his arms. It was then when Hotah spoke again. "Your brother is doomed."

Sometimes, Oberyn thinks himself to be no better than Walder Frey. He had a wife far younger than himself and for whatever reason, he could not have fathomed how he had lived when she had not been there. He was a greedy man, and Ellaria and his daughters were not enough. Sansa, sweet, intelligent (and somewhat cunning) Sansa, was his bane. She was turbulent, a wolf that would soon roam through the wilds.

"You can put me down now," Sansa whimpered, although she still clutched at his tunic as she leaned her head against his chest. He gave her a silent nod and helped her to her feet. They walked in silence, arm in arm until they had reached their private chambers. Instinctively, he walked towards the decanter of wine that was always on the table next to the window and poured two glasses. One for him and the other for her.

"You will need this," he told her when he passed her one of the glasses.

Sansa took the glass and took a hearty gulp. "We're in the eye of the storm," she said, breaking their silence. She had never felt so... heavy, burdened by not only the truth but also by the weight of her name. She was a Stark. She felt that she and Robb had the responsibility to make things right again, but, she knew not how. She was not a warrior, nor was she a strategist. In any case, she was inexperienced and untested. "I don't know what to do."

"What does your heart tell you?" Oberyn asked her, letting her lean her head on his shoulder. "You don't have to do anything now, my love. You have endured enough, you have earned your rest."

His words had been comforting, but she knew that she had wanted something more. "And I should just wait until I feel that it is right for me to move?" she asked him in return. Robb was fighting a war, Daenerys was freeing slaves and the Lannisters were simmering in their plots in King's Landing. Could she bask in Dorne while the world around them stirred?

"Learn as much as you can," Oberyn told her. "Learn what you wish to learn. Here, you are free to do as what you want. I will be behind you, my darling Sansa, every step of the way if I can." Ellaria had told him that morning that they were only conduits in Sansa's path. He had been saddened by that fact, but it was true. She was determined now to blaze her own path, and he knew that nothing could stop her.

"You've given me so much, Oberyn," she told him. "You and Ellaria... you gave me courage that I could never have before I met you." Her father had always preached that the only time a man could feel brave was when he was afraid. She had always been afraid. It was the same fear that brought her to seek whatever form of survival she could have. She had bowed and scraped, said words that caused her bile to rise, just to survive. She had enough of that life.

Since Oberyn and Ellaria had come into her life, she had discovered that being brave meant being able to choose, and to live with the consequences. Rhaegar Targaryen had chosen to love her aunt and he had torn the Seven Kingdoms asunder. When Robert Baratheon killed him, Lyanna had still been in his thoughts. She knew that she had to choose, but she did not know what that choice was.

"You are worth all that we have given you, love," Oberyn told her, bringing her knuckles to his lips. "As Doran had said, we were meant for each other, if not to quell the blood-strife between our families." He was wrong. He was not like Walder Frey. Walder Frey would have wanted a young, beautiful wife just for the sole reason of it. He had a young, beautiful wife because he knew his duty, not only to his family but to all the poor souls that had died because of a love that he and his brother were forced to help nurture, purely to honor his sister's wishes. If that was what his union to Sansa was, he would stand by it and stand by her no matter the cost.

"I don't want to care about everything else, just for now," Sansa said, now throwing her arms around him. "Couldn't we, just for a moment, forget about all the war and politics. Couldn't we be just who we are, because we love each other?"

Oberyn smiled, and tipped her chin for a kiss. It was warm, but light. Upon it's ending, he let her head rest onhis shoulder again, a position that he knew that she had favored. He liked to hold her thus as well. He liked the feel of her long, red hair spilled all over his side. It had looked as if rivers of blood had formed between them.

"We have all afternoon to do that, my love," he said, but Sansa had already fallen asleep, coaxed into her dreams by only his warmth at her side.

His sweet, sweet wife. She did not know how arduous her path would be.

HAN: At the end of the day, Rhaegar was the one who started the war, and he was the one who ended it with his death. Poor, poor Jon.

Let Sansa wait around in Dorne, for awhile. Let her cool her head and decide what her part in the grand scheme of things is.

Oberyn is doomed.

Enjoy!

P.S: Yes, I couldn't resist ever-famous "You know nothing, Jon Snow" phrase. I just tweaked it a little.