Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, other than my own the original character(s) in this story. This is purely a work of my personal enjoyment so don't expect anything worthy of GRRM. I fully welcome criticism/suggestions/questions. The story will eventually be finished (I hate leaving things unfinished) but I have no real schedule. Please review as I'd love useful thoughts :) feedback helps encourage my writing.

Chapter 51: Unbowed and Unbroken
"Vengeance, Justice, Ice and Fire."
– Princess Lyarra Stark

The last thing she recalled was seeing Aero Hotah. He stood over the white knight who raised his blade, too slowly, as Hotah's longaxe took his right arm off at the shoulder, spun away spraying blood, and came flashing back again in a terrible tow-handed slash that removed Arys Okaheart's head and sent it spinning wildly through the air.

It had landed amongst the reeds, where the Greenblood swallowed the red with a soft splash. Arainne did not remember climbing from her horse. Perhaps she'd fallen? She did not remember that either. Yet she found herself on her hands and feet in the sand, shaking and sobbing and retching up her supper onto the sands of Dorne.

"No," was all that she could think. "No, no one was to be hurt, it was all planned, I was so careful…"

She heard Areo Hotah roar, "After him. He must not escape. After him!"

Myrcella was on the ground, wailing, shaking, her pale face in her hands, blood streaming through her fingers.

Arianne did not understand. Men were scrambling onto horses whilst others swarmed over her and her companions, but none of it made sense. She had fallen into a dream, some terrible red bloody hellish nightmare. "This cannot be real," she told herself. "I will wake soon and laugh at my night terrors."

When they sought to bind her hands behind her back, she did not resist. One of the guardsmen jerked her to her feet.

He wore her father's colours. Another bent and seized the throwing knife inside her boot, a gift from her cousin Lady Nym. Areo Hotah took it from the man and frowned at it. "The prince said I must bring you back to Sunspear," he announced. His cheeks and brow were freckled with the blood of Arys Oakheart. "I am sorry, little princess."

Arianne raised a tear-streaked face. "How could he know?" she asked the captain. "I was so careful. How could he know?"

"Someone told." Hotah had shrugged in reply. "Someone always tells…"

Now she found Doran Martell seated behind a cyvasse table, his gouty legs supported by a cushioned footstool. He was toying with an onyx elephant, turning it in his reddened, swollen hands. The prince looked worse than she had ever seen him. His face was pale and puffy, his joints so inflamed that it hurt her just to look at them. Seeing him this way made Arianne's heart go out to him… yet somehow, she could not bring herself to kneel and beg, as she had long planned. "Father," she said instead.

When he raised his head to look at her, his dark eyes were clouded with pain. Is that the gout? Arianne wondered. Or was it her?

"A strange and subtle folk, the Volantenes," he muttered, as he put the elephant aside. "I saw Volantis once, on my way to Norvos, where I first met Mellario. The bells were ringing, and the bears danced down the steps. Areo will recall the day..."

"I remember," echoed Areo Hotah in his deep voice.

"The bears danced, and the bells rang, and the prince wore red and gold and orange. My lady asked me who it was who shone so bright."

Prince Doran smiled wanly. "Leave us please, captain…"

Hotah stamped the butt of his longaxe on the floor, turned on his heel, and took his leave.

"I told them to place a cyvasse table in your chambers," her father said when the two of them were alone.

"Who was I supposed to play with?" Why is he talking about a game? Had the gout robbed him of his wits?

"Yourself. Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. How well do you know the game, Arianne?"

"Well enough to play…"

"But not to win. My brother – your uncle – always loved the fight for its own sake, but not myself. I only play such games as I can win. Cyvasse is not for me." He studied her face for a long moment before he said, "Why? Tell me that, Arianne. Tell me why…"

"For the honor of our House." Her father's voice made her angry. He sounded so sad, so exhausted, so weak. He was a prince, she wanted to shout. He should be raging! "Your meekness shames all Dorne, Father. Your brother went to King's Landing in your place, and now they demand his head!"

"Do you think I do not know that? Oberyn is my family, as are you..."

"You've a funny way of showing it." She seated herself across the cyvasse table from her father.

"I did not give you leave to sit…"

"Then call Hotah back and whip me for my insolence. You are the Prince of Dorne. You can do that."

She touched one of the cyvasse pieces, the heavy horse.

"Have you caught Ser Gerold?"

He shook his head. The man had fled into the sands themselves.

"Would that we had. You were a fool to make him part of this. Darkstar is the most dangerous man in Dorne. You and he have done us all great harm."

Arianne was almost afraid to ask. "Myrcella. Is she…"

"…dead? No, though Darkstar did his best. All eyes were on your white knight so no one seems quite certain just what happened, but it would appear that her horse shied away from his at the last instant, else he would have taken off the top of the girl's skull. As it is, the slash opened her cheek down to the bone and sliced off her right ear. Maester Caleotte was able to save her life, but no poultice nor potion will ever restore her face. She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother…"

He paused at that, sighing as if it hurt to even speak of such things.

"She was under my protection. You have dishonoured all of us…"

"I never meant her harm," Arianne insisted. "If Hotah had not interfered-"

"-you would have crowned Myrcella queen, to raise a rebellion against her brother. Instead of an ear, she would have lost her life."

"Only if we lost, father…"

"If? The word is when. Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms. It pleased the Young Dragon to make all our armies larger when he wrote that book of his, so as to make his conquest that much more glorious, and it has pleased us to water the seed he planted and let our foes think us more powerful than we are, but a princess ought to know the truth. Valor is a poor substitute for numbers. Dorne cannot hope to win a war against the Iron Throne, not alone. And yet that may well be what you've played a role in giving us. Are you proud?" The prince did not allow her time to answer. "What am I to do with you, Arianne?"

Forgive me, part of her wanted to say, but his words had cut her too deeply. "Why, do what you always do. Do nothing..."

"You make it difficult for a man to swallow his anger..."

"Best stop swallowing, you're like to choke on it."

The prince did not answer. "Tell me how you knew my plans."

"I am the Prince of Dorne. Men seek my favour."

Someone told. "You knew, and yet you still allowed us to make off with Myrcella. Why?"

"That was my mistake, and it has proved a grievous one. You are my daughter, Arianne. The little girl who used to run to me when she skinned her knee. I found it hard to believe that you would conspire against me. I had to learn the truth."

"Now you have. I want to know who informed on me."

"I would as well, in your place."

"Will you tell me?"

"I can think of no reason why I should."

"You think I cannot discover the truth on my own?"

"You are welcome to try. Until such time you must mistrust them all." Prince Doran sighed. "You disappoint me, Arianne."

"Said the crow to the raven. You have been disappointing me for years, Father!"

She had not meant to be so blunt with him, but the words came spilling out.

There, now she had said it. It was done…

"I know. I am too meek and weak and cautious, too lenient to our enemies. Just now, though, you are in great need of some of that leniency, it seems to me, daughter. You ought to be pleading for my forgiveness rather than seeking to provoke me further."

"I ask leniency only for my friends."

"How noble of you…"

"What they did they did for love for me. They do not deserve to die on Ghaston Grey."

"As it happens, I agree. Aside from Darkstar, your fellow plotters were no more than foolish children. Still, this was no harmless game of cyvasse. You and your friends were playing at treason. I might have had their heads off, as would've been my right…"

"You might have, but you didn't. Dayne, Dalt, Santagar… no, you would never dare make enemies of such Houses."

"I dare more than you dream… but leave that for the nonce. Ser Andrey has been sent to Norvos to serve your lady mother for three years. Garin will spend his next two years in Tyrosh. From his kin amongst the orphans, I took coin and hostages. Lady Sylva received no punishment from me, but she was of an age to marry. Her father has shipped her to Greenstone to wed Lord Estermont. As for Arys Oakheart, he chose his own fate and met it bravely. A knight of the Kingsguard… what did you do to him?"

"I fucked him, Father. You did command me to entertain our noble visitors, as I recall."

His face grew flushed. "Was that all that was required?"

"I told him that once Myrcella was the queen she would give us leave to marry. He wanted me for his wife."

"You did everything you could to stop him from dishonouring his vows, I am certain," her father said.

It was her turn to flush. Her seduction of Ser Arys had required half a year. Though he claimed to have known other women before taking the white, she would never have known that from the way he acted. His caresses had been clumsy, his kisses nervous, and the first time they were abed together he spent his seed on her thigh as she was guiding him inside her with her hand. Worse, he had been consumed by shame. If she only had a dragon for every time he had whispered, "We should not be doing this…"

Had he charged at Areo Hotah in hopes of saving her? Arianne wondered.

Or did he do it to escape her, to wash out his dishonour with his life's blood?

"He did love me," she heard herself say. "He died for me..."

"If so, he may well be but the first of many. You and your cousins wanted war. You may get your wish. Shall I say that Oakheart perished in a hunting accident, or from a tumble down some slippery steps? Perhaps poor Ser Arys went swimming at the Water Gardens, slipped upon the marble, hit his head, and drowned?"

"No," Arianne said. "Say that he died defending his little princess. Tell them that the Darkstar tried to kill her, but Ser Arys stepped between them and saved her life." That was how the white knights of the Kingsguard were supposed to die, giving up their own lives for those that they had sworn to protect.

"That may fool some, until the lions speaks with Myrcella; as her mother demands. Must that brave child suffer a tragic accident as well?"

He needed her; Arianne realized. That's why he sent for her…

"I could tell Myrcella what to say to them, but why should I?"

A spasm of anger rippled across her father's face. "I warn you, Arianne, I am out of patience."

"With me?" That was so like him. "For Lord Tywin and the Lannisters you always had the forbearance of Baelor the Blessed, but for your own blood, none."

"You mistake patience for forbearance. I worked at the downfall of Tywin Lannister since the day they told me of Elia and her children. It was my hope to strip him of all that he held most dear before I killed him, but Obeyrn shares your impatience. I take solace in knowing that he died by our hands. Lord Tywin is howling down in hell now… but thousands more will soon be joining him, if this folly turns to war." Her father grimaced, as if the very word were painful to him. "Is that what you want?"

As if there was any choice left to them. The throne had named Oberyn responsible for Tywin's death, with the imp and Stark as his accomplice.

The princess refused to be cowed. "I want my cousins freed. I want my aunt and her children avenged. I want my rights."

"Your rights?"

"Dorne."

"You will have Dorne after I am dead. Are you so anxious to be rid of me?"

"I should turn that question back on you, Father. You have been trying to rid yourself of me for years."

"That is not true..."

"No? Shall we ask my brother?"

"Trystane?"

"Quentyn."

"What of him?"

"Where is he?"

"He is with Lord Yronwood's host in the Boneway…"

"You do lie well, Father, I will grant you that. You did not so much as blink. Quentyn has gone to Lys."

"Where did you get that notion?"

"A friend told me." She could have secrets too.

"Your friend lied. You have my word; your brother has not gone to Lys. I swear it by sun and spear and Seven."

Arianne could not be fooled so easily. "Is it Myr, then? Tyrosh? I know he is somewhere across the narrow sea, hiring sellswords to steal away my birthright!"

Her father's face darkened. "This mistrust does you no honor, Arianne. Quentyn should be the one conspiring against me. I sent him away when he was just a child, too young to understand the needs of Dorne. Anders Yronwood has been more a father to him than I have, yet your brother remains faithful and obedient."

"Why not? You favour him and always have. He looks like you, he thinks like you, and you mean to give him Dorne, don't trouble to deny it. I read your letter." The words still burned as bright as fire in her memory. "'One day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne,' you wrote him. Tell me, Father, when did you decide to disinherit me? Was it the day that Quentyn was born, or the day that I was born? What did I ever do to make you hate me so?" To her fury, there were tears in her eyes.

"I never hated you." Prince Doran's voice was parchment-thin, and full of grief. "Arianne, you do not understand…"

"Do you deny you wrote those words!?"

"No. That was when Quentyn first went to Yronwood. I did intend for him to follow me, yes. I had other plans for you."

"Oh, yes," she said scornfully, "such plans. Gyles Rosby. Blind Ben Beesbury. Greybeard Grandison. They were your plans."

She gave him no chance to reply. "I know it is my duty to provide an heir for Dorne, I have never been forgetful of that. I would have wed, and gladly, but the matches that you brought to me were insults. With each one you spit on me. If you ever felt any love for me at all, why offer me to Walder Frey?"

"Because I knew that you would spurn him. I had to be seen to try to find a consort for you once you'd reached a certain age, else it would have raised suspicions, but I dared not bring you any man you might accept. You were already promised to another, Arianne."

Promised? Arianne stared at him incredulously. "What are you saying? Is this another lie? You never said-"

"The pact was sealed in secret. I meant to tell you when you were old enough… when you came of age, I thought, but…"

"I am three-and-twenty, for seven years a woman grown."

"I know. If I kept you ignorant too long, it was only to protect you. Arianne, your nature… to you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garin and Tyene in your bed of a night. Garin gossips as only the orphans can, and Tyene keeps nothing from Obara and the Lady Nym. And if they knew… Obara is too fond of wine, and Nym is too close to the Fowler twins. And who might the Fowler twins confide in? No. There were too many possibilities. I could not take the risk."

She was lost, confounded. Promised. She was promised. "Who is it? Who have I been betrothed to, all these years?"

"It makes no matter," her father said. "He is dead."

That left her more baffled than ever. "The old ones are so frail. Was it a broken hip, a chill, the gout?"

"It was a pot of molten gold. We princes make our careful plans, and the gods smash them all awry." Prince Doran made a weary gesture with a chafed red hand. "Dorne will be yours. You have my word on that if my word still has any meaning for you. Your brother Quentyn has a harder road to walk…"

"What road?" Arianne regarded him suspiciously. "What are you holding back? Seven save me, but I am sick of secrets. Tell me the rest, Father… or else name Quentyn your heir and send for Hotah and his axe and let me die beside my cousins in peace."

"Do you truly believe I would harm my brother's children?" Her father grimaced. "Obara, Nym, and Tyene lack for nothing but their freedom, and Ellaria and her daughters are happily ensconced at the Water Gardens. Dorea stalks about knocking oranges off the trees with her morningstar, and Elia and Obella have become the terror of the pools." He sighed. "It has not been so long since you were playing in those pools. You used to ride the shoulders of an older girl… a tall girl with wispy yellow hair…"

"Jeyne Fowler, or her sister Jennelyn." It had been years since Arianne had thought of that. "Oh, and Frynne, her father was a smith. Her hair was brown. Garin was my favourite, though. When I rode Garin no one could defeat us, not even Nym and that green-haired Tyroshi girl."

"That green-haired girl was the Archon's daughter. I was to have sent you to Tyrosh in her place. You would have served the Archon as a cupbearer and met with your betrothed in secret, but your mother threatened to harm herself if I stole another of her children, and I… I could not do that to her..."

His tale was growing ever stranger. "Is that where Quentyn's gone? To Tyrosh, to court the Archon's green-haired daughter?"

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood's best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."

She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?"

"Vengeance." A soft voice spoke then, out from the shadows of her father's room. "Justice."

It was a woman, dressed in brown-and-black leathers with a green-leaf cloak. She grinned, "Ice and Fire."

Prince Oberyn was – rather surprisingly – an apparent student of history, though the man was quite selective as to his interests; he'd spoken often of his people and his beloved home. They'd come from The Rhoynar, he'd said, the mightiest river in the known world – with many tributaries stretched across much of western Essos. Along their banks was civilization and culture as storied and ancient as the Old Empire of Ghis. The Rhoynar grew rich off the river's bounty. Mother Rhoyne, they named her.

Fishers, traders, teachers, scholars, workers in wood and stone and metal, they raised their elegant towns and cities from the headwaters of the Rhoyne down to her mouth, each lovelier than the last. There was Ghoyan Drohe in the Velvet Hills, with its groves and waterfalls; Ny Sar, the city of fountains, alive with song; Ar Noy on the Qhoyne, with its halls of green marble; pale Sar Mell of the flowers; sea-girt Sarhoy with its canals and saltwater gardens; and Chroyane, greatest of all, the festival city.

Art and music flourished in the cities of the Rhoyne, the Prince of Dorne boasted, speaking of water mages akin yet so different from the sorceries of Valyria, which were woven of blood and fire. Though united by blood and culture and the river that had given them birth, the Rhoynish cities were elsewise fiercely independent, each with its own prince or princess, for amongst these river folk, women were regarded as the equals of men and the eldest child of rulers would inherit regardless of their sex.

Oberyn named them as a peaceful people, though fierce and formidable when roused to wroth, as many a would-be Andal conquerors learned to their sorrow.

The Rhoynish warrior with his silver-scaled armour, fish-head helm, tall spear, and turtle-shell shield was esteemed and feared by all those who faced him in battle. It was said the Mother Rhoyne herself whispered to her children of every threat, that the Rhoynar princes wielded strange, uncanny powers, that Rhoynish women fought as fiercely as Rhoynish men, and that their cities were protected by "watery walls" that would rise to drown any foe; whatever the truth of that was.

The great river was their home, their mother, and their god, and few of them ever wished to dwell beyond the sound of her eternal song.

When adventurers, exiles, and traders from the Freehold of Valyria began to expand beyond the Lands of the Long Summer in the centuries after the fall of the Old Empire of Ghis, the Rhoynish princes embraced them at first, and their priests declared that all men were welcome to share the bounty of Mother Rhoyne.

As those first Valyrian outposts grew into towns, and those towns into cities, however, some Rhoynar came to regret the forbearance of their fathers.

Oberyn named the conflicts as the War of Three Princes, the Second Turtle War, the Fisherman's War, the Salt War, the Third Turtle War, the War on Dagger Lake, the Spice War, and many more, too numerous for him to recount. It all reached a bloody climax a thousand years ago in the Second Spice War, when three Valyrian dragonlords joined with their kin and cousins in Volantis to overwhelm, sack, and destroy Sarhoy, the great Rhoynar port city upon the Summer Sea.

"We shall all be slaves unless we join together to end this threat," declared the greatest Prince, Garin of Chroyane.

This warrior prince called upon his fellows to join with him in a great alliance, to wash away every Valyrian city on the river.

Only Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar spoke against him. "This is a war we cannot hope to win," she warned, but the other princes shouted her down and pledged their swords to Garin. Even the warriors of her own Ny Sar were eager to fight, and Nymeria had no choice but to join the great alliance.

The largest army that Essos had ever seen soon assembled at Chroyane, under the command of an ever-charismatic Prince Garin.

According to Oberyn's tale, it was an army a quarter of a million strong. From the headwaters of the Rhoyne down to her many mouths, every man of fighting age took up sword and shield and made his way to the festival city to join this great campaign. So long as the army remained beside Mother Rhoyne, the ancient prince declared, they need not fear the dragons of Valyria; for their own water wizards and mages would protect them against the fires of the Freehold.

Garin divided his enormous host into three parts; one marched down the east bank of the Rhoyne, one along the west, whilst a huge fleet of war galleys kept pace on the waters between, sweeping the river clean of enemy ships. From Chroyane, Prince Garin led his gathered might downriver, destroying every village, town, and outpost in his path and smashing all opposition. At Selhorys he won his first battle, overwhelming a Valyrian army thirty thousand strong and taking the city by storm. Valysar met the same fate. At Volon Therys, Garin faced a hundred thousand foes, a hundred war elephants, and three dragonlords. Here too he prevailed, though at great cost.

Thousands burned, but thousands more sheltered in the shallows of the river, whilst their wizards raised enormous waterspouts against the foe's dragons. Rhoynish archers brought down two of the dragons, whilst the third fled, wounded. Thereafter men began to name the victorious prince Garin the Great, and it is said that, in Volantis, great lords trembled in terror as his host advanced. Rather than face him in the field, the Volantenes retreated back behind their walls and appealed to the Freehold for aid.

And the dragons came. Not three, as Prince Garin had faced at Vol on Therys, but three hundred or more, if the tales could be believed. Against their fires, the Rhoynar could not stand. Tens of thousands burned whilst others rushed into the river, hoping that the embrace of Mother Rhoyne would offer them protection against dragonflame… only to drown in their mother's embrace. It was said the fires burned so hot that the very waters of the river boiled and turned to steam.

Garin the Great was captured alive and made to watch his people suffer for their defiance. His warriors were shown no such mercy.

Prince Garin was locked in a golden cage at the command of the dragonlords, to be carried back to the festival city and witness its destruction.

At Chroyane, the cage was hung from the walls, so that the prince might witness the enslavement of the women and children whose fathers and brothers had died in his gallant, hopeless war… but the prince, it is said, called down a curse upon the conquerors, entreating Mother Rhoyne to avenge her children. And so, that very night, the Rhoyne flooded and with greater force than was known in living memory. A thick fog full of evil humors fell, and the Valyrian conquerors began to die of greyscale.

Higher on the Rhoyne, in Ny Sar, Princess Nymeria soon received the news of Garin's shattering defeat and the enslavement of the people of Chroyane and Sar Mell. The same fate awaited her own city, she saw. Accordingly, she gathered every ship that remained upon the Rhoyne, large or small, and filled them full of as many women and children as they could carry. Down the river Nymeria led this ragged fleet, past ruined and smoking towns and fields of the dead, through waters choked with bloated, floating corpses. To avoid Volantis and its hosts, she chose the older channel and emerged into the Summer Sea where once Sarhoy had stood.

Legend told that Nymeria took ten thousand ships to sea, mostly river craft, skiffs and poleboats, trading galleys, fishing boats, pleasure barges, even rafts, their decks and holds crammed full of women and children and old men. Only one in ten was remotely seaworthy, or so the citadel taught. Oberyn had his doubts.

Dorne was not the first place Nymeria's people would settle; merely the last on her grand journey in search of a new home.

Hundreds sank in storms, others turned back and became slaves, while the remainder of the fleet limped across the Summer Sea,

At the Basilisk Isles they paused for fresh water and provisions, only to fall afoul of the corsair kings of Ax Isle, Talon, and the Howling Mountain.

Nymeria took her fleet to sea once again, hoping to find refuge amongst the steaming jungles of Sothoryos. Some settled on Basilisk Point, others beside the glistening green waters of the Zamoyos, amongst quicksands, crocodiles, and half-drowned trees. Princess Nymeria herself remained with the ships at Zamettar, a Ghiscari colony abandoned for a thousand years, whilst others made their way upriver to the cyclopean ruins of Yeen, haunt of ghouls and spiders and worse things.

There were riches to be found in Sothoryos – gold, gems, rare woods, exotic pelts, queer fruits, and strange spices – but the Rhoynar did not thrive there. The sullen wet heat oppressed their spirits, and swarms of stinging flies spread one disease after another: green fever, the dancing plague, blood boils, weeping sores, sweetrot. The young and very old proved especially vulnerable to such contagions. Even to splash in the river was to court death, for the Zamoyos was infested with schools of carnivorous fish, and tiny worms that laid their eggs in the flesh of swimmers. Two towns suffered slavers, put to the sword or carried off in chains, whilst Yeen had to contend ghouls.

For more than a year the Rhoynar struggled to survive in Sothoryos, until the day when a boat from Zamettar arrived at Yeen to find that every man, woman, and child in that haunted, ruined city had vanished overnight with a trace. Nymeria then summoned her people back to the ships and set sail once again.

On Naath, the Isle of Butterflies, the peaceful people gave them welcome, but the god that protects that strange land began to strike down the newcomers by the score with a nameless mortal illness, driving them back to their ships. In the Summer Isles, they settled on an uninhabited rock off the eastern shore of Walano, which soon became known as the Isle of Women, but its thin stony soil yielded little food, and many starved. When the sails were raised again, some of the Rhoynar abandoned Nymeria to follow a priestess named Druselka, who claimed to have heard Mother Rhoyne calling her children home… but when they returned, they found only death.

Once more Nymeria set sail with what remained of her fleet. After so much wandering, her ships were even less seaworthy than when they had first departed Mother Rhoyne. The fleet did not arrive in Dome complete. Even now there were isolated pockets of Rhoynar on the Stepstones, claiming descent from those who were shipwrecked. Other ships, blown off course by storms, made for Fys or Tyrosh, giving themselves up to slavery in preference to a watery grave. The remaining ships made landfall on the coast of Dome near the mouth of the river Greenblood, not far from the ancient sandstone walls of The Sandship, then seat of House Martell.

Dry, desolate, and thinly peopled, Dome was a poor land where a score of quarrelsome lords and petty kings warred endlessly over every river, stream, well, and scrap of fertile land. Most of these Dornish lords viewed the Rhoynar as unwelcome interlopers, invaders with queer foreign ways and strange gods, who should be driven back into the sea whence they'd come. But Mors Martell, the Lord of the Sandship, saw in the newcomers an opportunity. The stories claimed Mor's also lost his heart to Nymeria.

To celebrate their union – and make certain her people could not again retreat to the sea – Nymeria burned the Rhoynish ships.

"Our wanderings are at an end," she declared. "We have found a new home, and here we shall live and die..."

Princess Nymeria named Mors Martell the Prince of Dome, in the Rhoynish style, asserting his dominion over all of Dorne.

"The red sands and the white, and all the lands and rivers from the mountains to the great salt sea," Oberyn spoke those words with pride.

Years of war followed, as the Martells and their Rhoynar partners met and subdued one petty king after another. No fewer than six conquered kings were sent to the Wall in golden fetters by Nymeria and her prince, until only the greatest of their foes remained: Yorick Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, Fifth of His Name, Lord of Yronwood, Warden of the Stone Way, Knight of the Wells, King of Redmarch, King of the Greenbelt and King of the Dornish.

For nine years Mors Martell and his allies struggled against Yronwood and his bannermen, in battles too numerous to mention. Mors Martell fell to Yorick Yronwood's sword in the Third Battle of the Boneway, leaving Princess Nymeria to assume sole command of his armies. Two more years of battle were required, but in the end, it was Nymeria that Yorick Yronwood bent the knee to, and Nymeria who ruled thereafter from Sunspear.

Though she married twice more, Nymeria herself remained the unquestioned ruler of Dome for almost twenty-seven years, her husband's serving only as counsellors and consorts. She survived a dozen attempts upon her life, put down two rebellions, and threw back two invasions by the Storm King Durran the Third and one by King Greydon of the Reach. When at last she died, it was the eldest of her four daughters by Mors Martell who succeeded her, not her son by Ser Davos Dayne.

"Only a dornishman can ever truly know Dorne," Oberyn told him as he ended his tale. "The vast deserts of red and white sand, forbidding mountains, sweltering heat, sandstorms, scorpions, fiery food, poison, castles made of mud, dates and figs and blood oranges – these things any man could speak of; but few know its heart…"

There were no cities in Dorne, it was said, and that wasn't far from the truth.

"We're almost home," Oberyn smiled wide over the brow of the ship.

The shadow city clung to the walls of Sunspear before them, though it was more town than city – with Planky Town at the mouth of the river Greenblood; with planks instead of streets and houses and halls and shops made of poleboats, barges, and merchant ships all lashed together with hempen rope floating on the tide.

Dorne seemed to at a glance have more in common with the distant North than either kingdom had with the realms laid between them. One was hot and one was cold, yet the kingdoms of sand and snow were set apart from the rest of Westeros by history, culture, and tradition. Both were also thinly peopled compared to the lands betwixt and both clung stubbornly to their own laws and their own traditions. Lastly, neither was ever truly conquered by the dragons of Aegon Targaryen.

The King in the North accepted Aegon Targaryen to spare his people, whilst Dome resisted the might of the Targaryens valiantly for almost two hundred years, before finally submitting to the Iron Throne through marriage. Dornishmen and Northmen alike were derided as savages by the ignorant of the five 'civilized' kingdoms.

Sailing by now it was hard to imagine how Sunspear had once been a squat and ugly keep called the Sandship in its early days under the Martells.

In the present beautiful towers bore all the hallmarks of Rhoynish fashion. It was named for when the sun of the Rhoyne wedded the spear of the Martells and in passing the Tower of the Sun and the Spear Tower stood proud – the great golden dome of the one, and the slender, high spire of the other; greeting all visitors.

They glittered in the sun mid-day sun like beacons. The Spear Tower reached up to the heavens, while the Tower of the Sun acted as its golden shield.

The castle itself sat on a spur of land, surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth side by the shadow city. Though the Dornish called it a city, it looked no more than a town, and a queer, dusty, ugly town at that. The Dornish built up against the walls of the Sunspear, then built up against the walls of their neighbours' homes, and so on out, until the shadow city took on its current form. Today, it was a warren of narrow alleys, bazaars filled with the spices of Dome and the east, and the homes of the Dornish built of mud brick that remains cool even in the height of the burning summer. Willam thought little of it, in all truth…

Winding walls wrapped around Sunspear and throughout the shadow city in a snaking, defensive curtain that would force even the boldest enemy to lose their way. Only the Threefold Gate provided a straight path to the castle, cutting through the Winding Walls, and these gates were heavily defended at need.

It was a far cry the majesty of the imperial Silver City with its white sands and shining walls.

"Best fetch your Princess," Oberyn snapped his attention back to the world.

"Aye," Willam merely hummed his reply.

The Viper acted far too friendly for his liking.

He did always have an affinity for snakes, for a time; snakes didn't fare well in the snow.

Their galley was a modest thing – one of Yronwood's best he claimed – though by Willam's standards it was a small thing with a sand-yellow painted hull and black oars for when the wind was against them, and the sails were lowered. "The seas should be fair this time of year," the old Lord Yronwood had vowed.

He'd been right, for the most part, but the trip hadn't agreed with everyone aboard.

In his cabin things were spacious enough, with a double feathered bed that boasted curtains of yellow silk; where he found her sitting.

"Ash," he called her, closing the door behind him.

"Will," Ashlyn turned her head, musting a smile for his sake.

She'd not stopped smiling at him since Yronwood, but it hadn't felt genuine.

"She's hiding something," Will's inner voice would taunt relentlessly.

The question was, what exactly? He hadn't found the answer… not that he'd tried to…

"Feeling better are we, Princess?"

He smiled back at her though his heart wasn't in it.

She hummed, nodding, sitting up from the bed.

"I'm sorry about-"

"It's fine," Willam waved it away.

She'd awoken the night past only to throw the contents of her dinner over him.

"It most certainly isn't," Ashlyn scoffed her denial. "Your shirt was ruined…"

Willam merely huffed and shrugged. Snow's seasickness had been worse.

"When have I ever cared what I wear, eh Ash?"

She smirked. "Well, you hate browns – oh and gold, and-"

"Shhh," he hushed her audibly. "You're not meant to answer that."

"Don't ask questions you don't want answered, Stark…"

This woman – despite his distance of late – knew him far too well, it seemed.

"We're coming into port," Willam leaned against the cabin wall. "You should come see, it's quite pretty…"

She scoffed at that. "Quite pretty? You're disappointed, then?"

"I expected-"

What had he expected exactly?

"-something bigger? I don't quite know; but more akin to back home…"

Sunspear had its charm and its beauty he supposed, but it was nothing to the Silver City.

"What do men know of beauty, mmm?" Ashlyn rolled her eyes and walked over from the bed.

"I could name some things," he couldn't help the smirk, eyeing her casually.

"Oh?" She smiled, more genuine than the last few days at sea.

Willam turned and opened the cabin door rather than answering.

"This way m'lady," he clung to his smirk like a drowning man clung to driftwood.

Ashlyn passed him and his smirk faded as quickly as it came, safely out of her view.

There was a warmth under the dornish sun that left him longing for far simpler times.

The air smelled of dust, sweat, and smoke, alive with the babble of voices. Sunspear was built from mud and straw, and coloured brown and dun. The ancient stronghold of House Martell was surrounded on three sides by the sea. To the west, in the shadows of Sunspear's massive walls, mud-brick shops and windowless hovels clung to the castle like barnacles to a galley's hull. Stables and inns and winesinks and pillow houses had grown up west of those, many enclosed by walls of their own, and yet more hovels had risen beneath those walls. And so and so and so. Compared to King's Landing or even White Harbour, the shadow city was barely more than a town in truth.

No doubt Lord Yronwood had warned the city of their coming, for the Threefold Gate was open when they reached it. Only here were the gates lined up one behind the other to allow visitors to pass beneath all three of the Winding Walls directly to the Old Palace, without first making their way through miles of narrow alleys, hidden courts, and noisy bazaars. The smallfolk shouted out as they passed. They crossed the squalor of the outer crescent and went through the second gate.

Beyond, the wind stank of tar and salt water and rotting seaweed, and the crowd grew thicker with every step.

"Make way for Prince Oberyn!" One guardsman boomed, thumping the butt of his spear on the bricks. "Make way for the Prince!"

"Prince!" a woman shrilled from behind

"To spears!" a man bellowed from a balcony.

"Oberyn!" called some highborn voice. "To the spears!"

Willam gave up looking for the speakers; the crowd was too thick, and a third of them were shouting.

"To spears!" By the time they reached the third gate, the guards were shoving people aside to clear a path for them, and the crowd was growing restless.

Oberyn waved and smiled at them as they passed, to cheers and merriment; when he raised his fist up the smallfolk's call for war and justice only grew tenfold.

"You're enjoying this," Suko accused, riding beside the man.

"No," Oberyn's smile died on his lips.

"They're eager though…"

"For Justice," Oberyn hummed. "As are we all."

"Tywin is dead, alongside the others," Suko argued. Was it not enough?

"The Lannister's still sit on the throne," Oberyn scoffed. "There will be no justice until they feel loss as we have."

That was the thing about vengeance. It would never be enough – Willam knew that – it was oft an unquenchable thirst. Knowing and acting were two different things.

The thicker walls of the castle eventually swallowed all of them, and the portcullis came down behind them with a rattling crunch. The sounds of shouting dwindled away slowly. Princess Arianne was waiting in the outer ward to greet them, with half the court about her: the old blind seneschal Ricasso, Ser Manfrey Martell the castellan, young Maester Myles with his grey robes and silky perfumed beard and twoscore of Dornish knights in flowing linen of half a hundred hues.

Princess Arianne strode to them on snakeskin sandals laced up to her thighs. Her hair was a mane of jet-black ringlets that fell to the small of her back, and around her brow was a band of copper suns. Where many dornish women were tall, Arianne took after her mother, who stood but five foot two. Yet beneath her jewelled girdle and loose layers of flowing purple silk and yellow samite she had a woman's body, lush and roundly curved.

"Uncle," she announced with a smile as the man dismounted, "Sunspear rejoices at your return."

"When doesn't it, sweet girl?" The viper hugged her tight. "You look… troubled…"

"I-" Arianne paused, diverting her eyes. "Who are your guests?"

Oberyn smirked at her avoidance, but let it lay for now at least.

"May I introduce," he waved to those behind him. "Prince Suko Lóng of the Dawn."

"Princess," Suko bowed, shooting his most charming smile towards the young woman.

"Charmed," she smiled back, looking over the stranger who looked as tanned as any salty dornishman; though his eyes weren't Martell.

"And the beautiful Princess Ashlyn Stark-"

"Stark," Arianne didn't seem surprised. "Princess too, is it?"

"Lady," Ashlyn scowled at the viper. "And not a Stark."

"Not yet," Oberyn winked slyly. "And lastly-"

"Quite the collection you've gathered Uncle…"

"-Prince Willam Stark, most handsome of my companions!"

"Hey!" Suko snapped at that, pouting.

"Good gods," Willam groaned at him.

Ashlyn sighed as Arianne looked at them all.

The man – named Stark by her uncle – wasn't pale as she'd have expected of a northman. He was tall at some six-feet, with raven locks, an unkept beard and sad icy-grey eyes that almost looked silver. Her uncle was right at least, the man was rather handsome… though the Yronwood sand-yellow tunic was not his colour…

She smirked when the Ashlyn woman glared at her though, viciously, protectively. She knew that look well…

It was a look she'd gotten many times, though usually from jealous wives or women who fancies themselves competition.

"This'll be fun," Arianne thought. She'd always loved playing games.

"A long story," Oberyn ruffled his niece's hair then, much to her annoyance.

"Father has commanded the cooks to prepare a feast for this evening," Arianne said, "with all your favourite dishes."

"He is ever gracious, my brother," the Viber glanced behind him. "You'll love dornish food, Stark."

Willam merely hummed, eyes glancing around the courtyard as if he expected some attack.

The scrawny wolf at his side was pacing back and forth.

"Father asks a word. He's in the throne room…"

The viper sighed. "Time for my scolding I suppose Ari?"

She could only smile innocently. At least she wasn't the only one causing trouble.

Hotah escorted them up the long stone steps of the Tower of the Sun, to the great round chamber beneath the dome, where the last light of the afternoon was slanting down through thick windows of many-colored glass to dapple the pale marble with diamonds of half a hundred colours. There the Prince of Dorne awaited them.

There were two seats on the dais, near twin to one another, save that one had the Martell spear inlaid in gold upon its back, whilst the other bore the blazing Rhoynish sun that had flown from the masts of Nymeria's ships when first they came to Dorne. Prince Doran sat beneath the spear and a hooded woman sat beneath the sun.

She had one leg crossed over the other, in light leathers with a leaf-green cloak; its hood up over her head.

"Brother," Doran greeted first. "And this must be Prince Willam with his companions…"

"Prince Doran," Willam bowed slightly, politely; but uncaring as his eyes scanned the hall.

"We've been expecting you…"

"Have you," Willam's eyes were locked on the stranger.

He'd seen that cloak before. She stood out like a sore thumb in the dornish court.

"Who's the fair lady brother?" Oberyn was smirking. "How unlike you, to take a paramour…"

The cloaked woman giggled at that, uncrossing her legs and standing up from the sun throne.

She pushed back the hood to reveal long mid-night raven locks and a heart-shaped face with bright emerald eyes.

"Pretty one at that," Oberyn's smile grew at the sight of her.

Prince Willam had taken a step backwards.

"Will?" Ashlyn nudged him worryingly.

"You…"

The woman grinned.

"You're dead," Willam insisted, scowling; as Flash growled.

"Not yet little brother," Lyarra shook her head. "Not quite yet…"

"Princess Lyarra arrived some time before you," Doran explained, eyeing the growling wolf with interest.

Hotah's axe was at the ready, should the beast near too close to his prince.

"He's been a very gracious host," Lyarra Stark declared happily.

"You're dead," Willam repeated, unsure what else to say.

She stepped down towards him at that, hand out for Flash to sniff protectively.

"Not dead," she insisted innocently once more. "See?"

Her hand to his cheek was real enough at least.

"L- Lya?"

"Willy," she moved her hand and ruffled his hair as if were a child.

He didn't know who hugged who first, but his arms were around her suddenly; though he half expected her to vanish into smoke.

"I saw you in-"

"-your dreams, yes…"

"How?" He pulled away, looking at her. "You vanished…"

"I came back."

"Your eyes…"

She blinked at that.

"A gift," she said, as if that explained a damn thing.

"Why-" Willam shook his head. "Why are you here sister?"

Her smile was beaming – like the sun on the throne she'd sat – hers was all warmth and innocence.

It was almost unnatural. "I'm here for you little brother," she said. "By the will of the gods, just as you are."

Willam scowled at that. The gods?

"And what other reasons, eh, Lya?"

"Ah," her smile turned cunning. "Rodrik asked to find you..."

"Prince Rodrik is here!?" Ashlyn interrupted them at that.

Lyarra merely nodded and uttered "Yep" while popping the P for effect.

"Roddy is here…"

"King Roddy," Lyarra told them.

King. What mean that…

"Father is-"

"-dead." She nodded. "Indeed, some time ago…"

Willam couldn't quite find the words. There was a time, long ago, when he might have celebrated.

His father was not a loving man – or even what one might call a good father, nor man – though years had seen his anger towards him turn to embers.

"I'm sorry Will," Ashlyn put a hand on his shoulder.

"What's his brother doing here though," Suko pressed.

"For him," Lyarra insisted. "With a little nudging from the gods, naturally…"

She said these things as if they were simple and required no further explanation.

"I hate to break up this family reunion," Oberyn cut in, all smiles. "Perhaps we can talk more over food?"

"Indeed," Doran agreed, sighing as if the man were exhausted.

"Excellent!" Prince Oberyn declared. "I will lead you to-"

"You and I must have words brother, privately," Doran interrupted sharply.

"My Prince has prepared rooms," Hotah declared then, standing beside his prince.

"I'll show you the way," Princess Arianne offered kindly. "If you'll follow me. Friends of my uncle are friends of mine."

As they left the hall Oberyn could be heard shouting at his brother, though it faded quickly; not only from the distance.

In the late hours of the day several servants brought plates and bowls of purple olives with flatbread, cheese, chickpea paste, long green peppers stuffed with various cheeses. The first course of seven, to honor their gods. Ricasso, the Martell's blind seneschal, rose and proposed the toast. "Lords and ladies, let us all now drink to Princess Elia's memory, to her son and her beloved daughter, taken from us cruelty; avenged by our good Prince Oberyn!"

Serving men had begun to move amongst the guests as the seneschal was speaking, filling cups from the flagons that they bore. The wine was Dornish strongwine, dark as blood and sweet as vengeance. Hotah did not drink of it. He never drank at feasts. Nor did the prince himself normally, but in this he raised a glass of his own.

Unknown to his guests, his own glass was well laced with poppy juice to ease the agony in his swollen joints.

"To my sister," Doran declared, smiling gladly. "And to my brother, who does Dorne proud…"

To say nothing of the heated fight the two had earlier today. That was apparently a common enough thing, but the two near always reached an understanding.

Oberyn had thrown his brothers plans to the wolves – in more ways than one – but the Red Viper had never boasted an abundance of patience. Tywin's death had not been part of the plan after all, not Doran's at least, not quite yet. He'd wished to see the man alive, to witless everything he loved taken away from him…

The Viper himself drank deeply from his cups, more than making up for his brothers nursing of his own gold-and-bronze chalice.

Willam drank too, though only courteously; somewhat wary of late… not without reason. Princess Arianne Martell was enjoying herself plenty, as did Lady Jordayne, and the Lord of Godsgrace, the Knight of Lemonwood, the Lady of Ghost Hill and Ellaria Sand, Prince Oberyn's beloved paramour.

Ser Daemon Sand, Lord Tremond Gargalen, the Fowler twins, Dagos Manwoody, the Ullers of the Hellholt, the Wyls of the Boneway; all drank happily.

Dorne had always been an angry and divided land, and Prince Doran's hold on it was not as firm as it might've been.

Many of his own lords thought him weak and welcomed open war with the Lannisters and the boy king on the Iron Throne.

Today, on the eve of things, those angry spears were laid down to celebrate… though never quite discarded…

Chief amongst those were the Sand Snakes, bastard daughters of the Red Viper, three of whom were at the feast.

"To Willam Stark!" Oberyn declared then, standing and raising his chalice high. "Slayer of the Mountain!"

Most of the hall cheered "Stark!" and "Slayer!" though some sipped their wine in silence.

"And I helped!" Suko yelled, earning some laughter as he downed his glass of dark dornish red.

Oberyn poured the one-eyed prince another glass as quickly as he'd downed it, all smiles and laughs.

The feast went late into the night. Seven courses were served, in honor of the seven gods. The soup was made with eggs and lemons, the long green peppers stuffed with cheese and onions. There were lamprey pies, capons glazed with honey, a whiskerfish from the bottom of the Greenblood that was so big it took four serving men to carry it to table. After that came a savoury snake stew, chunks of seven different sorts of snake slowly simmered with dragon peppers and blood oranges and a dash of venom.

Willam watched in mild surprise as Ashlyn ate the snake chucks with odd glee, her original wariness fading with a bite and a chew.

"The venom gives it a good bite," Prince Oberyn joked, though he wasn't wrong.

Willam had eaten snake before – back in the Empire – though the venom touch was… interesting…

The stew was fiery hot, with all manner of red hot dornish spice and pepper. Sherbet followed, to cool the tongue. For the sweet, each guest was served a skull of spun sugar. When the crust was broken, they found sweet custard inside and bits of plum and cherry.

Princess Arianne had the eye of many as she drank in her scarlet silks; leaving very little to imagination.

Willam smirked to see the sweat on Ashlyn's brow. He could sympathize. When first visited the Silver City, the fiery food there at first tied his bowels in knots and burnt his tongue like molten fire. In time though he'd developed a taste for their dishes. Dorne at least, in his view, had the best food he'd eaten since… well since they'd arrived…

When the spun-sugar skulls were served, Suko looked confused, poking the object with his spoon.

Arianne took notice, giggling at him. "It is the cook's little jape, Prince Lóng. We dornish are not afraid of death."

Tywin Lannister had – before his fate – seen fit to gift Prince Doran with the Mountain's skull; that now rested on a table beside his throne.

Suko smirked when the sugar-skull crumbled, and its hot insides poured out onto his bowl. It was sweet and heavenly.

"A delicious jest Princess," he offered her his most charming smile.

Arianne touched the silver pin that clasped his cloak. "A snake of some kind?"

It was serpentine, though with four legs and razor claws; unlike any creature she'd seen.

"A dragon," Suko's smirk grew. "To our people, they are sacred; quite different than your Targaryen beasts."

"How very beautiful," she hummed, stroking the pin innocently.

"Yes," Suko sipped his wine. "I've seen many beautiful things in my travels."

Willam scoffed from his seat beside Oberyn, pulling some lamb away from its bone; sauced with mint and honey.

"Drink," Oberyn pushed over a chalice of dark brown almost black liquid.

After a moment of glances between the viper and the chalice he rolled his eyes, taking a sip.

"You see Stark?" Oberyn chuckled. "No poison, my friend! Drink!"

Willam tasted it, half expecting to drop dead at the table.

It was sweet… and hot… for god's sake…

"You made it spicey," Willam huffed, sipping casually.

"Not us," Oberyn shook his head. "Spiced Rum from the Summer Islands, a favourite of mine."

"And quite expensive," Doran mumbled from his seat.

"I am worth it brother," Oberyn counted, pouring himself another.

"Debatable," Willam downed his chalice and poured himself another.

"You like it though, do you not Stark?"

He hummed and took another gulp. It was good.

It was going straight for his head though; he could feel it…

Years past it would've taken at least one whole bottle to affect him. He'd grown weak, it seemed.

Oberyn was bribing Flash with a leg of lamb under the table, attempting to put himself into the wolf's good books.

"Brother," Doran's voice called him.

"Yes?" Oberyn swallowed his last gulp of rum.

The Prince of Dorne bid him come closer – so he did, uncaring for the long-axe at his side; his brother whispered the words.

"Stark is not the only fleet in the Narrow Sea of late," he revealed as the guests went about their loud merriment. "From Lys. A great fleet has put in there to take on supplies. Volantene ships chiefly, carrying an army. I have no word as to who they are, or where they might be bound. There was talk of elephants…"

"No sign of the dragons though?"

Oberyn kept his face amused, smiling all the while.

"It would be easy enough to hide a young dragon in a big cog's hold. Daenerys is most vulnerable at sea. If I were her, I would keep myself and my intentions hidden as long as I could, so I might take King's Landing unawares…"

"She doesn't know about Stark though," Oberyn added, sipping from his chalice.

"No," Doran shook her head. "She does not… though the Princess assures me of King Rodrik's intentions…"

"This vendetta of theirs against the lions includes the girl, does it?"

"She's an innocent," Doran told his brother, as if it were so simple.

"So was Rhaenys," Oberyn argued. "Aegon too – or had you forgotten brother?"

"Never," he maintained his stony look. Still, he was not Tywin, to butcher children for their parent's crimes.

That left the rather annoyingly present question of what kind of man this Rodrik Stark was. Doran had no answer for that.

"This strange fleet then," Oberyn asked, moving away from the topic for now. "Do you think that Quentyn will be with them?"

"He could be. Or not. We will know by where they land if Westeros is indeed their destination. Quentyn will bring her up the Greenblood if he can, but it does no good to speak of it. Now, laugh and return to your seat brother; you leave with Stark in the morning…"

Oberyn laughed aloud as his brother asked, a thing of practiced mummery; he moved to pour another drink.

"What was that about?" Willam asked when the man returned to his seat.

"I am to accompany you North, it appears Stark."

"Is that so…"

"Come now," Oberyn feigned hurt. "Why so suspicious?"

"Well," Willam supposed aloud. "You poisoned me, for a start…"

"Bah!" Oberyn waved it away jokingly. "I poison all my closest friends!"

Willam stared at him blankly, then pushed his chalice of rum away.

"I can't tell if you're being serious Martell…"

"Starks," the Viper rolled his eyes. "You're no fun…"

There was a commotion then, cross the table; Ashlyn had gotten up in a rush.

She muttered apologies as she left, leaving her plate half empty as Flash gave chase.

"Excuse me," Willam said, up from his own seat to follow the woman. He ignored the eyes on him as he left – many as they were – not all in Dorne seemed to be thrilled to welcome Starks, though one doubted any would move against him with Oberyn's backing… assuming the man was remotely genuine…

He found Flash pacing at the door to their chambers, back and forth, the wolf whined and pawed at the door.

"Ash," Willam knocked on the door then.

There was no response at first. He knocked again, once, twice, three times.

Flash looked up at him and tilted his head.

"Fuck it," Willam sighed, pushing open the door.

It was His damn chambers, after all… he didn't need permission to enter…

The room looked as they'd left it, though servants had tidied the bed covers in their absence.

"Ash?" He asked aloud of the air.

"One moment," her voice replied from privy.

Willam frowned at that. If the Martell's had poisoned her…

"Are you well?" He asked when she appeared, looked half dead with messy amber hair.

"Snakes came back up," she jested as her face twisted something fierce.

"If they've poisoned-"

"No," she shook her head. "It's not that…"

Flash had jumped up onto their bed and sat, watching.

"What's wrong," Willam held his frown. "You've been off since Yronwood…"

Her eyes darted between the wolf and him.

"It's not-"

"It's something," Willam pried, scowling.

She was hiding something. He'd been lied to enough to know the feeling.

"Gods," she sat on the bedside and began to stroke Flash's fur absently.

"Talk to me," Willam stayed standing.

She scoffed. "You, of all people, telling Me to talk?"

"Do as I say Ash," he fought the urge to smirk. "Never as I do…"

"Fine," she huffed, pouting and stroking Flash's ears as the wolf rested its head on her lap.

"Any day now Princess…"

"Stark," she said, as if it were a curse.

Her eyes locked onto the wolf and didn't rise.

"I paid a visit to Yronwood's maester," she revealed hesitantly.

"The Maester?" Willam squinted, vaguely recalling the man.

Ashlyn hummed her confirmation.

"I had to be sure," she said. "I didn't want to-"

"-do what exactly?"

"Let me finish," she scolded, eyes darting up and staring.

He held his tongue, hushing the thousand questions in his mind.

"I'm-"

Her eyes darted down.

"Cute when you're flustered?"

Ashlyn stared blankly at him for that.

"Use your words Princess," his smile beamed.

"With child," she said bluntly. "If you must know… idiot…"

Willam blinked as the world seemed to grow heavier and his smile faltered.

"I," he paused, glancing at the way Flash's head rested on her lap.

"Well," Ashlyn frowned. "Say something, Stark…"

"I'm not sure what to say," he said honestly.

"I thought about losing it, back at Yronwood, but-"

"No," he blurted out quickly. The idea sounded… well… he couldn't find the words.

"I'm keeping her," Ashlyn said boldly, putting a hand protectively over her stomach.

"Her?" Willam re-forged his smile, taking a seat beside her on the bed.

She nodded. "It's a girl, I can tell… don't ask how…"

A thought hit him from the pit of his stomach.

"If it's a boy…"

"I know," she promised, her own smile like the sun of Dorne.

"I-" Willam found himself lost in her eyes for a moment, like amber stars.

"Aedan Snow," Ashlyn tested the name then, happily stroking Flash's coat.

Or would it be Sand? Waters? Rivers? All the voices in his mind screamed in protest.

"No," Willam firmly denied. It sounded wrong. "Stark…"

She looked at him like he'd grown a second head on his shoulders.

"Marry me," he blurted out. "He'll be Aedan Stark…"

After a moment she replied with "It'll be a girl" and a teasing grin.

"Visanna then," he decided, recalling fond memories. "For my mother..."

"Vis," she liked the sound of that.

"You dodged the question though Ash…"

Her eyes rolled and she stared at him for a while.

"You're sure? If you're only asking beca-"

"Not just that," Willam denied, shaking his head slightly.

"Then why, Stark?"

"Why?" He smirked and leant in to kiss her.

"That's not an answer," Ashlyn teased. "Use your words, Princeling."

"I'd rather show you instead," he persisted, kissing her neck and shoving Flash off the bed.

He'd never thought of himself as a father. Family had always been more the people he'd chosen than those who shared his blood – with Aedan's father being more kin to him than his own – he'd had a brother in Aedan… and in Suko too, thought he'd rarely admit that, least it go straight to the man's head…

Aedan Stark. That was a thought that held lingering feelings unlike anything; equal parts boundless joy and crushing dread.

If you loved something in this world, it could be taken away. It made you vulnerable. It made you weak.

That being said, it was something he could live with; for so long as he had the strength to defend it.

My Note(s): I fear I may have gone a little overboard with the Dornish history lesson, but this was really the only opportunity to paint that picture while we're in Dorne and I'm a massive fan of Dorne so couldn't help myself :P plus we learn hints of Doran's planning. It's pretty unchanged from canon really though now Dorne is more or less openly dragged into conflict with the Iron Throne… but they have Myrcella… even scarred as she is now. Doran's hand has been forced here thanks to Oberyn.

We also learn that Ash is preggers – somewhat cliché – though no less important for his character; this was my plan all along :P although I'm not 100% on if it'll be Aedan or Visanna but we'll see. I hope I conveyed enough emotion in the reveal, it was a little rushed, hence me being a day late to upload this chapter.

246vili: Willam running from his family/issues is in many ways the driving force behind his whole life, he's got issues :P as for Doran the man has his own lil schemes though Oberyn has royally screwed with a lot of it now that Cersei has demanded his head and, one assumes, the return of her daughter. I love Dorne generally speaking it's one of my favourite areas in Westeros – such a massive shame the HBO show ruined the whole plot and didn't do it any justice whatsoever…

TestingWrite123: I'm not sure what you're referring to by 'not caring' at Chapter 38 of all places; haven't even reached the good bits yet heh. As for Sansa being a 'sociopath' that's a highly odd opinion: she was a 13yr old girl who was quite spoiled and wholly unaware of the reality of the world & she was not remotely aware of the Lannister's having anything to do with Bran's fall in the books sooo she isn't "trusting the ppl that tried to kill her younger sibling" at all. She's just a naive child.

Guest: While I'm glad you're enjoying things; you can always say something more than "cool" every time you know :) but glad you're enjoying yourself ;)