AN- First off, sorry I haven't released anything in a while, I'm not even sure this story is something you would want to see, please tell me if you like it. If not I won't continue this. This first section is mostly to give a history of the Daynes and show the difference in this universe to the canon one.
When the Andals came, House Dayne watched in horror as Westeros spat on millenia of traditions and welcomed the sacrilegious Andlas and began to seethe with rage, They prepared to expand They threw back the first few Andlas in Dorne and expanded its borders. King Ayden Dayne, the Great Dayne, began to make crucial reforms. He began to build an army. Heavy armoured cavalry to counter the Knights of the Andals he called them cataphracts, they were capable at both range, in the charge and in mele, with bow and arrow, lance, sword or axe and shield. They became the stable of the Torrentine army. He also began to implement the halberd and poleaxe long for the regular soldier perfect for killing heavily armoured knights and infantry, he also began to create a strong warrior culture in his lands making his people proud to fight. He also began to build a fleet. To finance this they exported wine, sugar, cotton, silk and other materials made in their lands. He bought a vast amount of slaves that he freed from the valyrian empire in the east, these were skilled leaders, warriors, craftsmen, merchants, smiths and shipwrights. It wasn't long before he realised he would have to expand if he wanted to keep the andals at bay. He looked north and conquered the Blackmonts, who are now loyal vassals, he moved east and with a clever piece of diplomacy he married a Qorgyle woman, they bowed down to the Daynes as well. Then he looked south and saw that the Arbour was currently under the control of the Redwynes, a Andal house who had nearly made the previous house, the Lott's, nearly extinct with the last son fleeing to the Daynes and becoming a valuable friend of the King. With their fleet they engaged in one of the largest naval battles in History where they came out on top and then conquered the Island, reinstating the Lotts and making them forever grateful and loyal to the Daynes. Septs were burned and Setpons and andal warlords killed.
Outraged by this the now extinct house Hightower, a house that had warmly welcomed the Andals and were known as the Grey kings declared war on the Daynes. At the Battle of Sunhouse, where the Dayne Cataphracts broke the Knights of the Reach and King Ayden killed the Grey king and both his two and only suns. The rest of the Grey kingdom bowed to the Daynes with the only daughter fleeing to highgarden and marrying the King of the Reach, A Gardener. After a few hundred years of further reforms and the spreading of the Torrentine culture, a mix of Dornish, Rhoynish, from the slaves and the Wynelander culture that was a part of the Grey kingdom. The language of the first men was and still is the language spoken there. The culture was heavily marshall focused and both men and women fought, however women mostly fought as archers, making up the majority of Torrentine Archers. During this time many battles were fought with Andal invaders where the Torrenitne army showed its ability on the field successfully beating back huge hosts on the open field with clever use of tactics and weapons.
When Nymeria came with her ten thousnad ships King Davos Dayne, brought a host to meet her, but not to fight, Nymeria remembering the kindness of King Ayden Dayne in freeing rhoynish slaves, formed an alliance with the Dayne King, marrying her sister to the young king. Together they conquered the rest of Dorne, with Davos leaving it to Nymeria to create the independent Kingdom of Dorne ruled by House Nymeros Martell, kin to the Daynes. During this time Dorne saw a revival in First men culture as Davos had made sure worshipers of the Old gods were no longer suppressed and it blended with andal and rhoynish culture to create its own.
When the Targayans came the Torrentine was the second last kingdom to fall. In an effort not to seem like a tyrant King Aegon sent two hosts without dragons to defeat the Daynes. They failed at both the battle of the Vineyards in 2 AC and the battle of the princes pass in 5 AC. Eventually King Aegon brought Dragons and seeing this king Brandon Dayne, named by his Stark mother, King Aegon respected the Daynes and their legendary prowess in all forms of warfare and allowed them some concessions if they bowed. First they would not have to fight the Dornish, but Royal armies could use their land to march into Dorne. Second they would be known as princes and not Lords, thirdly they would be able to have women in their armies, something that was illegal in every other kingdom, besides Dorne, fourthly, they would be allowed to keep their culture, language and religion and the Targayans would defend that right if any other lords called it out. And so a deal was struck and with that the Kingdom of the Torrentine became the princeship of the Torrentine and King Brandon Dayne became Prince Brandon Dayne.
- The History of the Daynes.
Prince Ayden Dayne, Prince of the Torrentine, looked in the mirror the night after he had become Prince of the Torrentine. His parents had died in a storm off the coast of the Stormlands, their bodys found by fishermen a day later. He was only 16. The oldest of three children, his brother Arthur was a boy with typical Dayne looks similar to his own. Dark curly hair, said to have been gotten by Nymeria's sister, Myria. Deep bright purple eyes that were way too easy to get lost in, and a strong build. They could easily be twins as he was only 2 years younger. His sister Ashara was younger again at 4 years younger than Ayden. She was a very pretty girl and Ayden knew he would be receiving many marriage offers for her. He would also have to find one for himself. At 16 he was unmarried and probably one of the best matches available. The Torrentine was rich and powerful, with great trade relations in Essos and they made some products that couldn't be found at the same quality anywhere else like wine, sugar, silk, fruits and Iron, which was abundant in the Red Mountains. Starfall was a huge city, as big as kings landing, but without the smell and the castle of Star Isle, the seat of the Daynes, was a Island in the middle of the mouth of the Torrentine river, this made it nearly impenetrable as it was very hard to siege a Castle on a river.
He sighed and walked to his fathers solar, now he supposed he sat down and looked at the figures there. An army of 40,000 well trained men and women, 10,000 cataphracts, 22,000 infantry men, and 8,000 archers. Enough to easily defend their lands from both their neighbours, though he doubted Dorne as a sister kingdom to them would ever attack them. The reach was not so certain as they still claimed the lands of the former grey kings and had launched many invasions before the Dragons came. The navy was strong at about 200 ships, plenty to defend trade and the coasts. The economy was great but not as good as it had been under the reign of Jaehaerys, though he knew it would be much worse if Aerys wasn't controlled by Tywin. The Lords were as loyal as ever and mostly competent, the only outlier being Lord Faughen, the Lord in control of a fair portion of the western coast, just before the mouth of the river Mander. He was extremely loyal but wasn't a great lord, and it was clear from the state of the taxes. He didn't have to do anything about that and so decided he would continue to monitor the situation.
Next he checked the letters. They were mostly condolences from vassals, powerful merchants and lords and others and he wrote quick short replies to them. The Martell one caught his eye as it detailed a negotiation with Princess Lozera of Dorne. Apparently he had been about to be informed of an agreement to marry him and her oldest daughter, Nymeria Martell, second in line to the Dornish throne after her brother, Doran. He thought back to what he knew of the girl. He had met her about three times before as children. He remembered Arthur teasing him for blushing while he talked to her, of course he did, Arthur never stopped teasing you about something once it happened. She was beautiful and fierce, with the typical Martell looks, the same hair as him and narrow eyes like that of a snake, she had fine facial structure with bronze skin and a button nose. Apparently she looked just like Nymeria herself. He checked his fathers records just to be sure and there it was, a marriage agreement. Well he supposed that sorted the marriage problem. He sighed and penned a letter to the Martels, he wanted further information and to tell them that he would honour the agreement made by his father but he wanted to wait until he was ready for the marriage to take place. He was only 16 after all, the same age as her, children really.
He finished up the letter and delivered it to the ravenry. They didn't have Maesters, the only kingdom without a single one. This was because they had been set up by the faith of the seven and the Higthowers and after the battle of Sunhouse they had burned their citadel and fled the city, setting up in Highgarden instead. Instead after a few years they had sent agents into the new citadel who stole the knowledge of the ravens and it was given to their own form of maesters called the professors who did much the same thing as the Maesters. Of course the maesters hated them for it but there was nothing they could do about it as at the time no one was willing to go to war with the veteran Torrentine army over a few ravens.
He carried on and finished his lordly duties for the day and walked down to the yard where his brother was training with the Companion Cataphracts, the elite of the elite of Cataphracts, they were a unit founded by the great Dayne all those years ago, selected from the veterans of the expansion wars there was always a thousand of them. Split into ten groups of a hundred called 'stacks'. There were always two stacks of companions in or around Star Isle and Starfall while the other eight were spread around the kingdom preventing banditry and manning border forts. Currently a stack was at the castle , on guard duty or in the case of the five men who were there with his brother training. He walked down to the large training yard and nodded at the men who bowed at him.
"My prince, Prince Arthur has just finished beating us around the place, we apologize that you missed it." Said one of the men who he recognised as the leader of the Star Isle stack, Yuri.
"Oh it's nothing new Yuri, he's been doing that since he was 12." replied Ayden. It was true, his brother was freakishly good with a sword, better than him, and that was no easy feat if he said so himself.
"True my prince, perhaps you may show us how it's done, he has been getting quite cocky recently, muttering about the kingsguard or something." joked Yuri. For any other house to have a guard speak about one of their members that way it would be taken as an insult, but to them the Star Isle stack were the ones they would go into battle with, the ones who protected them, the ones who they fought beside for the year every male Dayne spent out in the country when they were 14, hunting bandits and pirates. As such they grew close to them and that distance that could usually be found between lord and guard wasn't present here.
"Come on Ayden, we haven't sparred in at least 3 moons," said Arthur. It was true, while Ayden was an extremely fine swordsman, and an even better tactician and commander of men, he was rarely found in the training yard, only doing so every week or so.
"Fine then little brother, let's see how much better you've gotten in those three months." he replied and walked over to the weapons rack, he picked up a longsword and kite shield. His preferred weaponry on foot. His brother was dual wielding a longsword and a larger sword, not quite a greatsword but bigger than a longsword. It was made to resemble Dawn, the ancestral sword of their house giving to the member most worthy of it. Ayden knew that person would be his brother, honourable and dutiful to the last and he would be the better swordsman of the two. They took their position and nodded and engaged in a dual of blunted steel and shield. After about ten minutes of intense fighting Arthur managed to get behind the shield and hit the hand that was holding it. Ayden dropped the shield and stepped out of range of the swing that would have hit his side. He gripped his sword in two hands and his brother began a rapid flurry of measured strikes that he had to use all his skill to defend against. He stopped to the side off one blade and his brother over extended to try and reach him with the second one which was already mid swing, Ayden knocked it away using his superior strength in a two hand grip and brought his sword down on the shoulder of Arthurs other arm, causing him to drop it and wince and Ayden capitalised on it and placed his sword against his brothers neck.
"Well little brother, looks like you're still not the better swordsman." he grinned and Arthur scowled, though Ayden knew he wasn't really mad.
"I'm the better swordsman, you're the better rider and archer, that's how it's going to be in a year, just you wait." grinned his brother.
"And i'm the better lord, the better looking one, the better commander, better tactician, the better sailor…" he said and his brother threw a half arsed bunch at him which he easily dodged. They nodded at the guards as they left and walked into the castle and up into the solar. "Now what's this I hear about the kingsguard?" he asked his brother as he sat down opposite him.
"Well you know i've always been interested in them, and I think i'm more than capable of it, I just don't want to do it and leave you as the only male Dayne left." replied his brother.
"Well I won't stop you brother, the most I can offer you is a position as a warden in one of the border fortresses, or build a new keep for you and we both know that not the life you want to live… but are you sure you want to take those vows, no women, no lands, no children… you're too young to understand what you'd be missing out on." said Ayden.
"I'm not, I completed my year with the stack, I've traveled across the kingdom and done all there is to be done." he said the last bit with a blush and a wide grin came across Aydens face.
"My honourable brother found a woman to lay with who he wasn't married to, mother would be turning in her grave." While not as sexaully expressive as the dornish they were certainly less taboo about it then the rest of the six kingdoms, it was after all a normal part of life.
"Shut up Ayden, it was just the twice while I was doing my year." muttered Arthur.
"Sure, sure. Now I should probably tell you that I'm going to be married to Nymeria Martell before the year is out." he said.
"I thought they wanted a royal match for her," said Art.
"They did but the king seems to want a Valyrian bride and even then Elia is the prince's age anyway."
"Ash is going to be pissed you didn't tell her."
"Probably, she'll live anyway, our little sister can't hold a grudge to save her life."
"True… I should probably leave you to work." siad Arthur and Ayden nodded and his brother left. Leaving him to his work.
AN- Again please tell me if you want to see more of this or more Lady of the Moat.