Trystane
A retreat was a different kind of march, Trystane knew now, and certainly a far cry from all the waiting they'd done since the war began. Every minute, every second it seemed, there lay enemies in these dark woods, arrows and swords ready to end their lives. What sleep he got was sparse and constantly interrupted by his nightmares while he was asleep, or by the terrified screams of dying men to jolt him awake, and every day it had seemed that they were marching with less men than the day before, though he didn't dare dally and make any sort of accounting himself.
That first battle had seemed so easy, horrifying as it was, the uncertainly before and during the battle, the brutal massacre afterwards. But dread still sifted through their camp, knowing the great battle was still far ahead, with Stannis Baratheon, the greatest commander in the Seven Kingdoms, standing in their way between their army and the capital. Then they'd gotten word that the Prince Viserys was going to take King's Landing.
"Stannis will retreat for sure," Jon Connington had said, studying his maps, chewed up by the wind and rain. "It'll be a race to King's Landing, and Viserys is closer."
"Which means we'll have to relieve their siege," Oberyn remarked, chewing on a dry piece of meat, "if they take the city. Stannis will keep fighting, I'm sure."
"Which also means our road to the capital is clear," Griff replied. They seemed to argue less these days, after routing the Mallister army near Seagard. "We'll cross the Green Fork on the morrow."
As they traveled alongside the Kingsroad, Trystane could see the faraway peaks of the Mountains of the Moon, and thought about all the armies who had traveled this path in the same direction they were doing now, whether to their victory, or doom. The path south had been good for Cregan Stark and the Tully brothers, who'd won the Dance of the Dragons for the Blacks. It had augured well for Ned Stark and his allies too, though less so for Robert Baratheon personally. Trystane thought that such history would favor them, before remembering that there was another Stark army behind them, marching furiously in the same direction, to catch them before they reached the capital.
Then disaster happened. Word spread through the ranks one afternoon of a complete loss by the Prince's armies below the walls of King's Landing, and a vile betrayal by the Lannisters and Tarly's who had sworn mere fortnights before to fight for Rhaegar's cause. The Prince himself had been captured, so they said, and many of the men, including Cletus Yronwood's father, they heard several days later, had perished in the fighting. There had been another argument between his uncle and Connington. Prince Oberyn prevailed, and they turned their horses around that afternoon, beginning this disastrous race back north and right into the teeth of Benjen Stark's battalions of wildmen.
"We can't cross back over to the Green Fork," Connington had muttered, one of the first nights of the retreat. "The Gauntlet won't be as friendly, we don't know how many Freys are still sitting at the crossing, ready to pick us off while we're weak."
"Is there any way we can reach the Bay south of Seagard," his uncle wondered. "I may be able to get a raven to the captains to sail and meet us."
Connington shook his head. "They won't need to even catch us in the Hag's Mire for us to die to the very last man." He pointed his grubby finger further up the map. "We'll need to round north of the Twins, ford the Green Fork somewhere south of Greywater Watch, and circle back around to the Cape of Eagles."
His uncle sighed. "The crossing will be easier. But we may find the Northern armies in our way before we reach the ships." The eyes of the Prince lit up, as an idea formed in his mind.
Connington recognized this too. "What is it?"
"If we're going to march that far north...what if we send ravens south to Massey's hook, to Pentos. Whomever knows where the Velaryon fleet that brought over Viserys's army, tell them to sail north and meet us at the Bite."
The old man grunted. "We'll spend a lot less time at sea..."
"And arrive in Braavos within half a fortnight," Oberyn continued, "rather than having to round an entire continent eager for the bounty that'll surely be on our heads."
Which confirmed to Trystane what he'd already suspected, that should they survive this ordeal, he'd be joining all of them in exile, he may never see his home, his father and siblings again. But at least he'd live.
The man they called Griff nodded. "We march north regardless. If we hear word from the east, we sail from the east. If not, we march as fast as we can back to the Sunset Sea."
They were several days north of the Twins now, Trystane knew. And while he wasn't intimately familiar with all the maps Jon Connington hoarded, Trystane had noticed they remained on the Kingsroad, rather than pivoting west for a crossing, so he asked his uncle.
"Aye, the fleet was already docked in Braavos. They'll swing west into the Bite. With any luck, we'll meet them when we hit the water. Otherwise, we'll follow the shoreline into the Vale until we see their masts in sight."
"We aren't going back to Dorne, are we?"
Oberyn shook his head. "Not for awhile, at least. But your father is a cunning man. If the war is lost, and he's on the losing side, he'll still do whatever he can to make sure that Dorne doesn't suffer. The same for his family too."
There were no masts to save them when they finally left the road towards a small village named Armis, at the mouth of a small bay along the southwest corner of the Bite. There was a brothel there, which meant his uncle would leave him alone for at least a few hours that night. For a moment Trystane thought to ask and join him. The northmen were still prowling out there somewhere, and it was not out of the question that they would catch up before their ships arrived. He did not want to die without having felt the touch of a woman, but Trystane held his tongue. Perhaps had he been braver at the Battle of Seagard, but it hadn't gone unnoticed by the boy the looks of contempt he'd received from Connington to Cletus Yronwood to nearly everyone, it seemed, except his uncle.
When the sound of distant horns awakened everyone in the camp the next morning, his uncle was absent from the camp. Knights and Unsullied staggered alike to ready their horses and arms on a moment's notice, and it was several minutes afterwards when Trystane saw his uncle riding furiously from the village to back to their camp.
"Yer late," Connington shouted at him in contempt, as he clumsily donned the armor that fit rather tightly upon the man. "Hope you had a good night, the northern banners are here."
Oberyn shrugged. "If it was to be our last night in this world, then I had a better one than you."
The red haired lord spit on the ground. "We'll be outnumbered, the army will continue to retreat east." He pointed towards a distant range of hills, their highest ridges still hidden under the morning fog. "We'll take cover in the mountains, they'll have to rip us out root and stem. Dorne will form the rearguard, and protect the retreat!"
Without another word, Connington was off on his horse, while his uncle rode swiftly towards a small entrenchment Trystane had helped dig the previous night, reaching from the edge small beach nearby towards the base of the gentle hills rising above them. Running on his two feet, Trystane moved to follow, but his uncle waved him back.
"Go with them," Oberyn shouted.
"I won't leave you," Trystane screamed back, searching for his horse. "I'll be brave this time!"
"Your sword won't make a difference. But your name does!"
He would've argued further, if a column of Unsullied didn't interrupt their discourse, positioning themselves at the head of their line, and by the time they'd passed, his uncle had disappeared.
So for the second time this war, Trystane ran.
Catelyn
"To Sansa, the Merciful!"
"To Sansa, the Wise!"
"To Sansa, the Conciliator!"
The roars of the crowd followed the royal wheelhouses all the way from the Red Keep to the Great Sept, and the Queen Dowager wept in her heart for her daughter. Though within the span of a few fortnights Sansa had become perhaps the most beloved King or Queen to sit on the Iron Throne since Baelor the Blessed, only a mother knew the price she paid for their popularity across the realms.
The whispers had spread to the Keep by the time the little Queen returned to the castle. Her face looked strong, emotionless, as Catelyn watched her daughter's footsteps echo towards the Queen Dowager's solar from the window above. Behind her, Hoster Tully had to stop himself from swearing, and try and regain his composure for the return of his favorite grandchild, who'd given them such an unruly and unexpected shock with this...rash...or was it actually a wise decision, or could it be both?
Her father's face was stern when Ser Balon accompanied Sansa into the room. Wisely, the young Kingsguard stepped outside, and closed the door behind him. Catelyn did not believe Hoster would speak to the Queen in a manner too crossly, but any anger the either one of them possessed vanished when the poor girl ran into her mother's arms and her soft blue eyes broke out in tears, sobbing hysterically as her small body shook within Catelyn's embrace.
"I'm...I'm so sorry...," the Queen had whimpered, between gasps of weeping, "I...I wasn't thinking..."
"It's our fault," Hoster muttered, placing his hand assuredly on her back. "We shouldn't have left you out there alone, with the Imp..."
Managing to recompose herself for a second, Sansa withdrew from her arms before she spoke, her pitiful and swollen eyes alternating between the two of them.
"Oh it wasn't Lord Tyrion's fault, grandpapa, he had nothing to do with my foolishness, he said nothing...please don't punish him!"
As if Hoster Tully and the Queen Dowager could punish their fellow member of the Small Council as a parent would do a truculent child.
"It's all my fault," Sansa had continued, shaking her head in a fit, "the battle was so horrid, so awful, and I thought, if I could do something to end the war...to end all the wars...it has to be my duty to do it, isn't it?"
"It's our fault," Catelyn had repeated as she took her daughter back into her arms again. Next to them, her father looked sadly at the ground, and for a moment Catelyn thought he was close to shedding a tear himself.
The crowds roared when the Queen stepped out of the wheelhouse, the noise never dying down as she ascended the steps to the Sept. At its top, Sansa turned, and gave a shy wave to the people...her people, and their cries in response were so thunderous that the Dowager Queen feared the building itself would shake at its foundations.
And in that moment, Catelyn Tully thought she'd never seen a girl so sad.
Recalling later that day, nearly an hour after she'd ran first into her mother's arms, Hoster having left the solar out of sheer uneasiness by then, her daughter's whimpers finally died down, and the Queen raised her tiny head from Catelyn's lap, looked her mother in the eye, and said the words that broke her heart freshly anew, so soon after Pyke.
"War really is the worst."
It shouldn't have been your burden to bear, Cat cursed to herself, walking behind her daughter into the building. Leading a country in war, awaiting a deadly siege, dressed up in strange armor and forced to witness with your virgin eyes the worst battle this country has known since the rebellion. And now, she was burdened to marry a cowardly dragonseed, who could very well turn out to be as bad as his father and older brother. Or worse.
Yet, what choice did they have then, to curse one child and spare the other? And what choices did they have now?
"The boy Bran," Petyr had asked, when it was just she and her friend and her late husband's Hand, "what kind of boy is he, what kind of man will he be?"
"I don't know," Catelyn shook her head. "He wants to be a soldier, a fighter like his brother. He trains hard with the sword and the bow, but hasn't taken to it so easily yet, like Robb at his age."
For once, she did not know what Petyr was thinking. Her father clearly preferred Sansa for the throne, as did Lord Renly, though they all knew, including the man himself, that his word carried little weight in light of his failures with the Greyjoy war. Jon Arryn leaned towards Bran, and so did Catelyn, though she'd said nary a word herself while they discussed the issue solemnly at that morning's Council meeting.
"He likes books," Catelyn added. "He's better suited to be a maester, I think, rather than a soldier. I'd thought to maybe send him to the Citadel, before..."
Her voice caught.
"Perhaps one day he may resemble the Warrior himself," Petyr said, pacing her solar while she and Jon Arryn sat, a respite from the earlier Council meeting, except their work never really ended now. "Perhaps one day Bran will be like King Eddard, the souls of the Father and the Warrior embodied in the form of one man."
Jon Arryn shook his head. "I never knew you to be such a pious man, Baelish."
"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not." Her childhood friend leaned down onto the table, propping his hands between the wife and the Hand. "I know this country is a pious one. And this country is at war, fighting against a dynasty that ruled over it for most of the last three hundred years."
"Your point," Jon asked, waving his bony fingers impatiently.
"We need a symbol, my lord. The Targaryens are Fire and Blood, everyone knows this well, they've ruled the seven kingdoms for centuries through fear. The Starks...no offense to your late husband, Your Grace, but justice and fairness and stern silent glares into the distance only goes so far with the people, in a country where six of the seven kingdoms could give less than two shits about winter three seasons out of four...pardon my language."
"You want to use my daughter as a symbol," Catelyn spat at her friend, her voice a guttural moan.
"She is already, like it or not. Rhaegar was a symbol too...youth, chivalry, honor...the promise of the future..."
"That's a sham," Jon muttered.
"It is. But some in this country still remember him that way, else Rhaegar never could have won at Pyke." The little boy from the Fingers resumed his pacing. "Rhaegar's star faded, because of his own choices. He abducted a maiden fair from the North, he raped her, he killed her, though his actions...and he lost an inheritance and a dynasty because of it. Yet now he returns, to despoil the land like an Ironborn reaper, because of his greed, his lust."
Petyr turned to her.
"I'm sorry Cat. I know you love your daughter, she is your own, in so many ways. But your husband's dynasty is weak now, and will remain weak for some time. Think of the story we'll need to tell, not so that we can keep this little castle we have here," he waved one hand in the air, "but that we can keep our heads, so we can keep alive your children, the little Princes and Princesses."
"What story is this?"
Cat could tell from his eyes, the way his voice wavered just slightly, that Jon Arryn was truly listening to Petyr's words now. And they did make sense to her...had they been spoken about someone else's daughter, and not her own.
"Many years ago there was a fair prince, who had all his heart could desire, a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, and the greatest inheritance in all the known world. But blood flowing through his heart grew prideful, and lustful, and foul, so took the maiden, the flower of the North, Lyanna Stark, and plunged the realm into a terrible war. Now he returns, and with his allies, these Ironborn pirates, Rhaegar the rapist, the defiler and killer of maidens, they all seek to take and reap of our lands, our peoples, just like he did the poor girl after the Tourney at Harrenhal.
But the Gods are just, they will protect the weak, the innocent, the righteous...then send to us, to protect us, one of their own, the Maiden incarnate. The songs of Lyanna Stark were ones of tragedy. But the ones they will sing of her niece, Queen Sansa Stark, the innocent, the holy, the virtuous, will inspire seven kingdoms. Men will rise and fight not just because of their vows of fealty to their lords and wardens, but to protect their innocent and pious Queen, blessed by the Seven...because if they can't do that, how can they protect the maidens in their midst, the innocents they so love and cherish, when they turn their heads not against just the Iron Throne, but the very Gods themselves?"
It was all Petyr's fault, Catelyn thought. Yet, the war was won, was it not? Perhaps he'd been right, in the end. And while the battle instead had been won through Lannister...trickery, who knew whether or not it was the picture of an innocent girl in need of protection which had inspired the Imp to confess his treachery and make true for past sins?
And much as her father still insisted on begrudging him for events which seemed more ancient than ever, Catelyn wished more than anything for Petyr to return. They were powerful men, her father and Jon Arryn, wise too, yet Petyr was cleverer by half compared to both of them. He would know what to do with this problem with Viserys, Catelyn thought, or she hoped.
"Is there anything we can do," she'd asked her father, after she'd laid her daughter to bed.
"Is there anything we should do," Hoster Tully had replied frustratingly in turn.
"You can't mean to let her follow through with this foolishness," Catelyn shouted too hysterically for her taste, "she doesn't want to marry him, I can see it in her eyes."
"So can I." Father shook his head. "I don't want to see it through. But Jon Arryn..."
"You spoke to him?"
"I did," Hoster replied. "I went to the Hand's tower, while you consoled Sansa. They're tending to his wounds, the man's body is weak, yet his mind..." He shook his head again, more fervently this time. "Dammit, the girl made the promise before nearly half the Seven Kingdoms. 'A promise is a promise,' Jon said, 'how will it look upon all our houses if we break it?'"
"Damned Arryn honor," Cat swore, her father not objecting to her choice in language this time.
"I swear though," Hoster continued, with annoyance in his voice, "the way he speaks, I think he actually agrees with the move, thinks it'll embarrass Rhaegar enough to finish his claims, once and for all. But it's not his own blood he thinks of, when he speaks of such things. Stannis too, I don't expect a man like him would stand for broken vows."
"Can we arrange to the man to be killed? Discretely?" She didn't need to whisper or speak cautiously of this dark idea which had been bubbling in her mind all day, because he was her father, and they both knew how the other truly felt about this betrothal.
Hoster Tully gave her words some thoughts, before his shoulders sagged. "Jon'll never agree to that."
"Discretely," Cat repeated, emphasizing the word.
Hoster sighed. "If he ever finds out, he'll banish me to the Wall, and send you to the Silent Sisters. At best." A resigned grin grew upon his face. "Doesn't matter for me, the ride north would probably kill me well before I fall into Tywin Lannister's hands...but think about what losing us will do to Sansa."
"She's the only thing I'm thinking of right now," she'd replied, just as firmly.
The High Septon stepped forward, and bride and groom approached him from either direction. They were a rather plain couple, Catelyn thought, the girl Lollys Stokeworth, though she was very much a woman almost as old as Catelyn herself, seemed much jollier about the ceremony than her soon to be husband, a rather nervous looking knight named Ser Dontos Hollard. Such a ceremony would normally not be worth the High Septon's time, much less be conducted in the Great Sept and see the attendance of the Queen and all her royal family and advisors, except the war was over, and the city needed a celebration, a release from all the recent tension, and House Stokeworth, one of the few in the Crownlands who'd remained loyal to their side, needed to see the reward of the Crown's favor.
The royal family sat alone in a high alcove, overlooking the wedding and all gathered to witness it, just Cat and her father and children, along with a few close friends, Jeyne Poole next to Sansa, and little Shireen Baratheon next to Arya. Shireen's father sat one level below them, the grim man who'd just won them the battle, positioned next to the man whose mind had won the war. Dipping her eyes downwards, Catelyn watched the Imp make conversation with his uncle Kevan, and his son Lancel, whom she guessed had been amongst the many her daughter must've knighted nearly a fortnight ago. She should trust him, Cat scolded herself. Despite withholding the entreaties from the Targaryens initially, Tyrion had done everything in his power to win back for his family the Crown's favor, and she ought not begrudge him for the crimes of his father. If anything, they were almost tied by family, what with Tyrion's sister married to Ned's brother. Catelyn never liked the woman, another reason she'd been hesitant with the Lannisters, but the little Lord of Casterly Rock seemed entirely different from the rest of this family, and in a good way.
Directly opposite them in the circular Sept sat their captive Targaryen princeling. With Jon Arryn still recuperating in the Tower of the Hand, Cat locked eyes with her sister and the boy she held in her arms, in the prince's section along with Margaery Tyrell, another woman she didn't trust. And what about Lysa? Through sixteen years of living in the same castle together, they'd rarely exchanged words besides mere courtesies ever since she arrived in King's Landing with a newborn babe in her arms, and Lysa remained barren until nearly ten years after. If anything, Sansa's new betrothal probably broke the last bridge in their relationship, Lysa having been under the illusion ever since her coronation that Sansa would be marrying her son Robin one day, even though her own husband Jon had been insistent on a marriage that would create new alliances, not cement already existing ones.
At least the Targaryen boy was their problem now. In the end, they'd agreed to send him up to the Eyrie, an impregnable castle that would make impossible any attempts towards either escape or rescue. There, they could delay any actual marriage, and with Jon Arryn's eyes and ears following Viserys Targaryen all day and night, Cat could only hope that the boy's actions would give them some reason to break the betrothal, especially if he were to show any signs of the madness in his father. Cat suspected too that Jon Arryn did not exactly trust her and Hoster's intentions towards the Prince, and rightfully so, making his stay in the Vale as much for his own protection as it was to prevent them from losing their hostage against Rhaegar.
"He's so ugly," she heard Jeyne whispering to Sansa. "I thought Targaryen Princes were supposed to be the fairest knights in all the land."
Her daughter shrugged sadly. "Maybe the stories they tell us aren't always the truth."
How cruel was this world, for her daughter to have to learn such ugly truths at her young age?
Rhaegar
"This surprises you, our brother's betrayal?"
His sister was a clever one. Often, it amused him, but the problem was that sometimes she didn't know when to stop, particularly on a day like today.
"This doesn't surprise you, sister?"
News of the defeat and Viserys's betrayal had arrived several fortnights before, first a scroll from the Spider, who had somehow managed to send them the news even while he himself was fleeing the scene of the battle, the entire continent, for the matter. A weary and disheveled arrival in Pentos by Varys had brought even worse news, that of the massive defeat in the Neck inflicted by Benjen Stark's army. Connington had escaped on a boat to Braavos, the Spider believed, as well as a decent number of that expedition, but there was no word yet on the highborn Dornish Princes who'd accompanied their northern invasion, which meant yet another fresh headache for the King.
Daenerys looked away towards the ocean. There were no magisters or archons accompanying them in their small council held outside the manor, just the King, and his dwindling inner circle. Ser Lewyn looked away awkwardly as well. Was he thinking about his nephew Oberyn, or his grandnephew Trystane, whom the man had never even met? Certainly it could be said that House Martell suffered as much as any family in the wars before and since, nearly as much as his own. Would this be the last straw, Rhaegar wondered, could Viserys's betrayal be the reason for the Prince Doran to quit the game he had so recently reentered?
"You should have sent me," Daenerys looked back at him, her eyes shining with the intensity of a true dragon. "I wouldn't have made the same mistakes. I wouldn't have fallen for the Lannister trap. I wouldn't have bent the knee to Queen Sansa, even if she offered me her hand in marriage."
"No, you wouldn't have," Rhaegar muttered. He sat this evening in his wheelchair, a contraption some enterprising merchant from Volantis had made for him. Rhaegar tried avoiding it as much as he could, insisting on proceeding on foot and cane the short walks from one room to another he had to make on a daily basis, but he had little energy left in him today, after yet another round of bad news. "Thoughts, Varys?"
"On the Princess leading the war," the eunuch replied carefully, looking between brother and sister. "Viserys was rash in his actions, that was true..."
Rhaegar interrupted him sharply. "Did you believe the Lannisters as he did?"
"I wasn't sure, to be honest," Varys admitted, eyes looking over the king as if he were the questioner, and not the questioned. "I didn't have the time to ascertain, at the time. Certainly the possibility could not be ruled out, that they were lying, or that their renewed loyalty was genuine. I suggested to the Prince a course of caution, to test their allegiance, before we committed to anything, or made a massive decision hinging upon one messenger and one scroll, but certainly the Prince was...most eager, Your Grace, to win the war for you as immediately as he could."
Rhaegar sighed. Of course he'd had his doubts about giving Viserys leadership over the war, how could he not? But what other choice did he have, a broken man who couldn't even walk upright more than a few minutes at a time. Obviously sending Daenerys would have been out of the question, so Rhaegar had to accept the inevitable, that despite their initial success on Pyke, taking an entire country, without a great dragon at their head, had always been the riskiest gamble, and so now it had failed, as most wagers often do.
"Now what," he asked softly, though not just at Varys, but directing the question towards his sister and Ser Lewyn also. "The war's lost, but at least the girl offered Viserys her terms. Our dynasty isn't completely dead."
Just dead in name.
His sister and Kingsguard still stared out at the waves, and no one answered except for Varys.
"Are you happy with that, Your Grace? For Viserys to be king...or merely a consort, who knows? For your brother, who failed in war, to be rewarded as the one to continue the line of the dragon?"
What other choice did he have? Certainly after these two disastrous defeats, hospitable or courteous they may continue to be, no magister or Prince would ever buy him another army again, no bank would loan him the gold. No, perhaps it was for the best if he ordered Varys to take care of his sister, entrust her a place of safety and comfort, then instruct Ser Lewyn to push his chair into the ocean, and let the waves take him from this weary life...the great Rhaegar Targaryen, the Young Dragon, the Dragon who Sang, to die in the east, his last notes a few sad whimpers as the sun set upon the greatest dynasty ever known in all recorded history.
But the Dragon must have three heads.
He saw his sister's eyes upon him, begging him, beseeching him, though for what, Rhaegar could not tell. Finally, Varys spoke again.
"The Prince's temper was...a problem, Your Grace, if I may speak honestly." Rhaegar nodded, what did small courtesies matter at this point, and Varys continued. "We lost allies we had...we lost allies we might've gained..."
"Yes, I know," he interrupted, it was rare for the Spider to rub salt in the wound.
"...but his allies are the Starks now. And their allies, his allies. Perhaps the Tully's and Arryns named the girl to the Throne because the country would rally around her, as it has...a wise decision, because why worry about tomorrow when you need to survive today? And survive they did...but tomorrow is now at hand, today, and her grasp upon her crown will slip with each and every day, because she is a girl, because the people, lords and smallfolk alike, will forget their love and their devotion to her, as the realm returns to peace. Day by day, as her very elderly patrons wither and die, they'll see her less as their beautiful and beloved child Queen, and more as a weakness, they'll see her as a piece of meat, meant to be devoured by them."
Rhaegar turned to look at him. They all did, though he thought Daenerys's eyes were narrowed rather angrily at the Spider.
"What do you advise, Lord Varys?"
"Patience, Your Grace," the Spider replied, eyes dancing for the first time since his escape and return across the Narrow Sea. "Patience, caution, and care. We tried war. The war failed, and we have fewer today who can lead us in the next war. But there's more than one way to hunt a wolf."
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Notes and Responses: Thanks all for reading and reviewing thus far! First off, Jorah was pardoned, Sansa said she'd pardon her if Viserys agreed to her terms. As for marrying Viserys...well, from the eyes of the audience we know it's a very bad move. But Sansa doesn't know that (and neither does Tyrion, through whose eyes we see it transpiring). Whether you believe it a wise move to the end the war, or a stupid decision, certainly it can't be argued that it was a rash one, one made in the heat of the moment...by a twelve year old girl who's already been traumatized and stressed beyond measure by the pressure of having to "lead" a country through a war, and having to witness firsthand a brutal and bloody battle.
One useful disclaimer, which I included in the tags when I posted this on AO3, is that there will be many "ships" in this story, and all of them are tbd because...well, it's part of the story. Not all of the relationships will be good, or healthy, or wanted by the author. Not all of them will be permanent either, some may be endgame, and some may be temporary.
As for Dorne, I've kept their motives in the background purposefully, so as to reveal things a little bit at the time. All we know now, that's been revealed in the story, is that yes, Ned did give them some justice, and that appears to be why Oberyn isn't keen to fight this war. It also seems like Rhaegar has agreed to marry Arianne, and make her his Queen as well. There has also been mention of the Starks having insulted Dorne, and the Martells. And Catelyn did recall all the years Robb "wasted" in Dorne.
I'd imagine we'll find out more about Dorne in the coming chapters.
And it wasn't just the Greyjoys who killed Ned and Robb, but also Connington, and the Dornish army, and banners from the Crownlands, and some Unsullied and Second Sons...basically all of them save the Greyjoys continued on the northern expedition we follow through Trystane's eyes, after Pyke.
As for the nobles and smallfolk worshiping the ground Sansa walks upon, that prediction seems to have materialized in this chapter already. But as Varys says to Rhaegar, such sentiments can be fleeting indeed. And it seems her move almost worked, Rhaegar was pretty close to being despondent and giving up, but it looks as if Varys still has a few tricks up his sleeves. I'm not sure whether Rhaegar would ever agree to take the Black (especially with Tywin Lord Commander), but in a perfect world he could probably be convinced to live the rest of his life in Illyrio's palace in Pentos.
...except he still believes himself to be a figure of prophecy, and has to fulfill his destiny. As for Connington, I think he loves Rhaegar, probably is indifferent to Dany, and probably dislikes Viserys. And because of his dedication to Rhaegar (I believe in canon he's in love with the man), he probably sees this as a very cruel betrayal from Viserys, and would probably cut him down personally, if Rhaegar ever gave him permission.
Finally, I mentioned when posting this story elsewhere too, the fantasy and magical elements of this world will be very much toned down...but there will be something of an in-story explanation for it.
