Aldburg
Unknown to Elia, she was not the only one to have that magical mark of a spear on her palm for a moment.
In the Old Palace, where the whole Martell family and their various branches currently had gathered for being present at unveiling a shared monument for the late Aria Martell, the past ruling Princess of Dorne and her brother Lewyn, her two brothers and their children were all woken up before dawn by a sudden pain on their left palm.
"What is this…?" Doran wondered in disbelief as he sat up in bed, Mellario opening one of her eyes at his movement but otherwise not waking up, seeing how the mark vanished like it had not been there. Had his two children the same mark showing up or not?
Oberyn and Ellaria, on the other hand, got visited by his four oldest daughters as Obara and Nymeria had left their own bedrooms at the sound of Sarella suddenly crying and escorted the two younger ones from their nursery since the corridor between Oberyn's bedchamber and the nursery were not that long.
"Sarella had a nightmare, papa," Tyene explained in a sleepy voice, as her currently youngest half-sister teary-eyed tugged on the sleeping tunic of Obara and nightgown of Nymeria with both her little hands on each side for comfort.
"My little one seems to agree with Sarella, given how I was woken up by those kicks all suddenly," Ellaria commented, placing a hand on her swollen belly in a attempt to make the kicks stop.
"Thanks for escorting Sarella here despite that you could have returned to sleep," Oberyn said to his older daughters, and when Sarella climbed up in his bed for a hug, he took the chance to check her left palm.
No glowing mark of a spear, but somehow he did not doubt that his daughters and his niece and nephew had also had that strange mark on their left palms for a moment. What did that mean? A warning for that Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon possibly being in danger? Or something else?
~X~X~X~X~X~X
When the sun rose, everything was quiet again in the camp and the servants took the time to make breakfast. No one among the adults were surprised over that Rhaenys and Aegon turned out to become really grumpy at the moment because of how early they had woken up because of the alarm.
"Wow, what a difference from his normal behavior…"
Especially Aegon were the opposite of his usual mood, given that he generally was a such quiet child, even throwing a rare temper tantrum and stomping with his little feet as the camp was packed up. On the other hand, given how early Rhaenys and Aegon had woken up today, most of the experienced parents in the travel company understood that especially Aegon suffered from a fatigue tantrum at the moment
"No! No, no, no, no!"
Despite that it could have been handled by one of the servants or Elia herself, the King of Rohan picked up the boy with a gentle scolding, which surprised the toddler to the point of stopping the temper tantrum:
"Now, now, Aegon. If you screams like that, you will only end up with a sore throat and that is not nice of you would like to talk later."
Again Elia was dumbstruck by the massive difference between Aerys and King Théoden. Her now thankfully dead goodfather had never viewed Rhaenys and Aegon as being "worthy" Targaryens for taking after their Dornish maternal family instead of their paternal family in the form of the typical Valyrian features House Targaryen had: pale skin, silver, platinum, or gold hair and eyes in a variety of shades of purple, or light blue. In fact, Aerys had never touched either one of his two grandchildren, and never bothered to soften his insults aimed towards Elia if they were around to hear.
But Théoden was already acting almost like they were his own grandchildren, for Elia knew that he had a soft spot for both Rhaenys and Aegon, for all of that they were not of his own blood at all. As a widowed father with no second wife, Théoden had raised his only son as a single parent with the help of his mother and sisters.
"By Mother Rhoyne, now I am imagining how a meeting between father and the King of Rohan would go! It is how tender they are around small children!" she realized, at noting how she could see some similarity between Théoden and her own father Ihsan in the way they acted around young children, for Ihsan had been much delighted not only by Doran's children, but enjoying Oberyn's Sand daughters despite that they were born on the wrong side of the blanket and that he could never meet the mothers of the four oldest.
"Come on, it is time for leaving."
Both the children settled back into one of the carriages at the front of the ridge so they could see her, Elia mounted her mare and joined the members of the royal family at the front.
Thankfully Rhaenys and Aegon soon fell asleep against some of the bedrolls not long after that they had started the travel again, rocked to sleep by the regular movements of the carriage and the sound of horse hooves against the ground. No one of the riders spoke when this was discovered, for it needed to be quiet around the two children so they would not be woken up all suddenly and become even more grumpy than before in reaction to not being allowed to sleep.
Not far from the camp, the dead bodies of orcs laid on the ground. For Elia, who had never seen such creatures before, the sight made it more clear than everything previous that Arda indeed was nothing like Westeros. Yet her attempt of masking her horrified reaction were not fully successful, as it betrayed that she were not familiar with those monsters at all. But the royals of Rohan did not comment, Elia had already confirmed without saying it openly that she were from a distant country where it likely were too hot for orcs to manage to make raids, and that she most likely were more used to monsters in human form instead.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
When they were only a hour away from Aldburg, Éomer and Éoywn took the chance to enlight Elia about something they had not gotten time to speak of before.
"Your grandmother might come to Aldburg as well?"
This reminded Elia that she had not meet other members of the royal family in Rohan. Laywyn had said that the two widowers after Mildwyn and Sunnwyn had remarried once the mourning period after the royal brides had ended, and that one of the late Éomund's most trusted men were acting Third Marshal of the Riddermark until that Éomer were of age and ready to take over the role his father once had held in life.
"Yes. Grandmother Morwen have not been in Edoras during your stay because she broke her hip a few months before you arrived, and with her current age of 84 years, it took longer for that injury to heal than if she had been younger."
That was understandable, a such injury on a older person could become fatal if it were not healed correctly, or indirectly lead to death if it was backed up by some illness that made recovery unlikely.
Aldburg were less grand than Edoras, but it still held a importance of being the first capital of Rohan. And the city was very much alive by its people doing what needed to be done now when spring had arrived. The royal family had been expected, so everyone wanted to see them enter though the main gate.
"Fastwine!" Éoywn called at seeing the old friend of their late father, who just had been talking to his own wife and turned around to see who that had called his name. When he noticed who it was, he smiled.
"Here is two young foals who have grown a lot since I last saw you almost four years ago!"
As his cousins enjoyed to once again see the faces of the old servants from their childhood home, and the King asked other high-ranking men if their group had been the only ones attacked by orcs this passing night, did Théodred learn something that he would need to warn Elia about:
Boromir, the oldest son of the Steward of Gondor, was about to arrive here to Aldburg within the following day, likely on a diplomatic mission from his father.
And given how Elia first had reacted on the now late Cearo, Erkenbrand's sixteen-year-old sister-in-law, when that girl had been one of the rare Rohirrim to be dark-haired without any blood relation to Gondor or the Dunlendings, there was a huge risk if that she might not react well on seeing Boromir if he too resembled someone from her past.
"I better tell her now, so she can be somewhat ready on that Boromir arrives," the Prince of Rohan thought for himself as he went to see where Elia and her children had gone.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: triggers of tantrums in toddlers can be several ones, and fatigue tantrums occur when a child is tired.
The Rhoynar worshiped a number of river-themed nature gods. Their primary god was Mother Rhoyne, or Mother River, the personification of the river Rhoyne itself.
Fastwine is a Old English name meaning Firm friend
Dunlendings, also known as the Gwathuirim, were the ferocious, tall and vicious men that lived in Dunland, close to Rohan. Also called the Wild Men of Dunland, they had long been enemies of the Rohirrim, because they were jealous that the rich lands of the old Númenórean province of Calenardhon were granted by the Gondorians to the Rohirrim instead of them.
Quick question: Do you readers think that I should add Morwen, the mother of Théoden and his sisters, to the cast in Rohan? She might live on a jointure somewhere closer to the border of Gondor, since that is her homeland, and could possibly act as a contrast to Rhaella in same manner as Théoden is a foil to Aerys
