Making defenses at home
Knowing that there was little he could do in Rohan or Gondor for now while the Rohirrim was gathered at Dunharrow and the Dornish soldiers soon joining them as well, Doran focused all attention on Dorne, especially as Arianne sometimes needed to focus on little Ramses as a mother.
"Are you feeling that all this is too much for you, Mellario?" he asked after hearing the footsteps of his wife coming closer. Doran knew that she was afraid of the war, and how it could affect Dorne and their whole family. To be honest, he could not blame her if she did have a desire to return to Norvos; Back when they had wed, no one had been able to warn the Prince of Dorne and his bride from Norvos that one day, Elia and her children would one day cause a storm that literally uprooted everything they had expected from life.
"Perhaps once I would have said so, yes, but now? I would never forgive myself if I were to escape Dorne for my own selfishness and abandon my family in a time of crisis. Besides, we do not just have four children anymore, we have a grandson to care for and love, as well."
Doran nodded. This was part of why he had fallen for Mellario in the first place. That she was blunt and honest about reasons behind her choices, yet also tried to find a way to explain why she may do something which went directly against what people expected of her.
"Are you thinking of trying to put up a magical barrier around Dorne again? Because I do not think there would be any other reason for you to make a circle around your homeland on the map," Mellario commented when noticing the table with maps at his side, and she could see on his body language that she had hit a mark.
"...I am afraid that someone in the Red Keep may use Robert's absence to cause trouble in the rest of Westeros in his name. The Tyrells, for example, because Olenna is a Redwyne by birth and she may try something behind the back of her grandson, reaching out to her birth family to use the royal fleet or something."
The former Princess Consort facepalmed, seeing his point. That old Dowager Lady of House Tyrell was a pain in the neck, and a very good example of how powerful men tended to underestimate the female gender because of how women often used the expected social behavior in public to hide their brilliant minds.
"Come on, Doran, let's borrow your youngest nieces for a helpful family dance to spread out that barrier down in the palace gardens. We do not need any idiotic foolishness from north of the Red Mountains now, we have a otherworld in-law family and their homeland to help protecting against Sauron!"
On the way down to the gardens and picking up the four youngest children of Oberyn from the nursery, Mellario guided Doran in a classic waltz from Norvos that was pretty common here in Dorne as well. She did not see it, but she did feel something from his hands as they spun around in the corridors, the former ruling Prince sometimes using his walking stick to help his balance a little.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
The four youngest Sand Snakes were very eager to do something with their uncle and aunt, for while they did understand that there was something unusual going on, a little bit of normality was welcomed to keep them from being too affected by the unspoken fear and anxiety that the adults could not really hide.
"Around, around! Tio Doran!" four-year-old Loreza pleaded to him, and he obeyed to the best of his ability.
"Ok, that is enough, darling. Think of that old injury…."
Seeing that her husband was getting tired, and trying to mask possible phantom pains from his groin area though it, Mellario asked the girls if they could be so sweet and bring his wheelchair to the garden. Rather than having to carry one wheelchair across all the stairs in the Old Palace if Doran needed to get to different rooms if he had a bad day with his pains, Mellario had ordered several ones to be made and for those to to be placed on the different levels of the palace that Doran most commonly used.
"Yes, tia Mellario!"
And of course, the moment the four younger Sand Snakes was out of sight and hearshot, something seemed to cause their two youngest sons to cry out from another part of the garden:
"MÃE!"
"Yes, boys?" Doran called, placing his walking stick so he stood more comfortable on his bad leg. Since Trystane and Mahaad were only little over a year apart in age, it was nothing strange with finding them together if they wanted to be left alone from their female cousins. And Quentyn was trying his best to be a good big brother to them as well despite the age difference.
"Uncle Doran, something just showed up in front of us!" Griff explained, guiding his two younger second-cousins along the nearest shortway and Quentyn at the back to ensure that neither Trystane or Mahaad tripped without warning, using the "uncle" as a sign of how close the older generation was and how they had no problem with being addressed as honorary uncles or aunts by the offspring of their cousins. But it was the items in their arms that alarmed both Doran and Mellario. At first look, it looked like stones, but when being brought closer, details on the surplace was a good cause for alarm for anyone who had grown up with tales of dragons: Egg-shaped, tiny scales, and unnatural colors.
Dragon eggs.
"Oh no. No, no, no, no! NO! We are not going to have those magical beasts around in the middle of everything else! The world is better off without those flying lizards of fire and doom!" Mellario exclaimed in a manner that was all unlike her usual self, snapping the dark green dragon egg from her second youngest son and then chased the confused Mahaad around his father for a few steps before managing to also grab the other egg in pale cream streaked with gold from him.
"Ma, give that back!"
But Mellario refused to give back the eggs, showing that despite her short stature that had been passed down to Arianne, she was very skilled in holding her ground against children demanding something back.
"Mellario is right. Those may be stone now, but if the magic causes those to hatch…" Doran whispered, his face pale in alarm as Quentyn let him touch the black dragon egg with scarlet ripples and swirls.
"That is why we brought the eggs here as soon as we found them laying in the other end of the garden," Griff said, and Quentyn mentioned that they had heard a strange sound from the flower bushes while their cousins had helped Doran with the barrier, and spotted those eggs lying under said flower bushes.
"Good work in bringing them here before anyone else found those eggs, boys. But we have to remove those at once, because we can not risk that those dragon eggs somehow are brought to life through our gathered family magic and hatches!"
Then, tapping the surface of the nearest pool with his cane, Doran brought up an image of Ser Ulwyck Uller, the uncle of Ellaria, on his ship as one of the commanders of the Dornish fleet in the war against Sauron.
"Ulwyck! Ser Ulwyck!"
The aged knight looked around for a moment, before noticing the small portal to the side and knelt as a sign of respect.
"Yes, Prince Doran?"
"A problem just showed up, that can be troublesome in the longer turn."
Placing herself beside her husband, Mellario kept a eye on him as he ordered:
"Toss those damn things overboard and make sure that they sink to the bottom of the sea, so the unborn dragon hatchlings inside will never draw breath or manage to reach the surface, should they somehow be brought to life with magic!"
While Ulwyck was surprised that House Martell somehow had gotten their hands on dragon eggs, he knew why Doran gave this order to get rid of them. Dragons meant death and destruction, never bringing anything good along. If the last two Targaryens somehow learned about those three eggs, it would also mean unwanted attention from north of the Red Mountains. And given what the Rohirrim had told about the dragon that had once driven out the Dwarves from their Kingdom in Erebor, they could not risk Sauron getting his hands on those eggs.
"At once, my Prince and Princess! Men, get me an empty chest and some good-sized rocks to act as weights once they are tied to the chest!"
Once the three eggs were placed in a locked chest, and several smaller rocks tied to it with strong ropes so it would not float up again to the surface even in powerful storms that could rip up things from the bottom because of the sheer force involved, Ulwyck and one of his sailors threw the chest overboard.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Not too long afterwards:
"Dragons eggs?! Here in the gardens of the Old Palace when you tried to place the barrier around Dorne?!"
Hearing about this from her parents, it was understandable that Arianne got scared and hugged her young son closer to herself in terror. Daemon also looked visibly shocked at learning what his three brothers-in-law had found in the gardens.
"T-t-there should not be any such eggs left in Westeros….most of them were lost in Summerhall, and if there were any hidden at Dragonstone, Rhaenys sank them to the bottom of the sea alongside the whole island…"
Then, she recalled a detail from the history of the Targaryen dynasty that generally was not remembered that much: Elissa Farman stealing three dragon eggs from Dragonstone, and selling those to the Sealord of Braavos so she could afford a huge ship for her desired adventures.
"Of course…that sort of stuff that suddenly shows up all suddenly way later in the future. We should have expected something such…" the ruling Princess muttered, mirroring her mother in how she would facepalm in a situation that would give her an unwanted headache from overthinking.
"Try to see it from this view, Ari; We should not have to worry about Viserys and Daenerys somehow getting their hands on those eggs in the future. For even if they would not be able to hatch the eggs, it is still a symbol for them as a family hailing from Old Valyria and as a family of dragon-riders. A threat that we can not allow to take root for the sake of peace under the Baratheon dynasty."
"I know, papa…and thank you for dealing with those damn eggs as soon as possible," Arianne responded, sounding just as tired as Doran felt himself. Well, it was not so strange, she had an infant son to care for, alongside her duties as the ruler of Dorne. Even with an army of maids in the nursery for Ramses, having a war threatening Dorne was not exactly helping.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: Yes, those were the canon eggs of Viserion, Drogon and Rhaegal. Given the history of dragons in Middle-earth and Westeros, Doran and Mellario knew at once that those eggs were a danger, either in the hands of Sauron or the last two Targaryens, Viserys and Daenerys. So with those three eggs on the bottom of the sea, another change from canon happens: Daenerys will NOT get them as a gift at the wedding to Khal Drago.
As for why Arianne mentions Elissa Farman and how those eggs may be the origins of the ones Daenerys gets at her wedding, I know that Fire and Blood is full of details that does not make much sense according to the whole ASOIAF series written so far between 1996-2011, but those three eggs have to come from somewhere given how the Doom of Valyria seems to have brought down the number of living dragons in total alongside any existing breeding lines outside the Targaryen dragons (think of how studbooks are used in RL animal breeding) and who knows, surely she can not be the only successful thief stealing dragon eggs from the Targaryens, but perhaps the most famous one and the only one who are actually known to do it
