WARNING: Not a new chapter. I just accidentally deleted this one and now resubmitted it.

As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed for keeping me inspired!

Lady of Dorne

Sunlight

After enjoying Lord and Lady Wyl's hospitality for two days, Elia made her progress through the Red Mountains, to Kingsgrave, Skyreach and finally Godsgrace where she boarded a ship that took her down the Greenblood. At Planky Town, her retinue found a grand reception by the town merchants and after another day of festivities, they mounted their sand steeds to make the last leg of the road, the ride that would lead them to Sunspear without further delays.

The city appeared before them in the bright morning of the second day of their journey, glittering like an enormous gem under the sun gilding all the roofs. Elia stared at the Threefold gate which slowly opened, at the crowds gathered on both sides of the passage and made an effort not to cry with both joy and sadness at seeing how severely decimated the population of Sunspear was. Here she was, in the land of her birth, the greatest love of her heart, closely after her children. The magnificence of King's Landing could not hold a candle to that, not to her. At this moment, she could not imagine how she had managed to leave without her heart breaking. Dorne was in her blood, as imprinted in her soul as the words of her House. She saw in the distance the towers of the Old Palace and her heart rose at the sight.

Next to her, Rhaenys murmured, "It isn't like a true city."

Elia's joy faded a little. Her daughter had been too silent and withdrawn ever since they had left King's Landing, preferring to stay close to Naeryn and her sisters or clinging to her grandfather whenever Alric could find the time. She could not share Elia's excitement at being home. To her, this wasn't home.

"It is the closest thing to a city that we have," she replied neutrally, realizing that unlike her, Rhaenys would need to be taught to love the land she would rule one day.

Her daughter nodded and smiled a little. "But the sun is so warm," she said, trying to find something nice to say – an art Elia had taught her carefully. She was determined that her children would have manners.

"It is," Elia agreed, grateful that Rhaenys had inherited her own tone of skin. Her Targaryen-looking cousins encountered more difficulties keeping their skin from drying up and cracking.

They had not gone through the gate yet but there was already a deafening roar of welcome. Elia tugged at the reins to slow her sand mare down and looked at her father, her heart suddenly in her throat. Alric smiled and kept his stallion back, so she would go first. "It is for you, Elia," he said, as if she didn't know. "They are welcoming you home."

She drew a breath and pressed the mare with her heels.

As she passed through the first gate, the shouting rose, easily rivaling the thunderstorm that had accompanied them to Storm's End. "Long live our princess Elia, Arianne's daughter!"

Rhaenys looked up, astounded. Of course, she's seen Rhaegar being applauded, and me as well, Elia thought. But that was something different. Rhaegar was no longer the silver prince adored by everyone and Elia had been – well, his queen. Here, in the heart of her own land, where the popularity of the Martell line was as strong as ever, bordering on fanatical, the earth really shook with the cry echoing through the city and soaring to the sky until Elia thought that every youth, every old wife, every battered man at-arms was repeating it, shouting themselves hoarse.

"Long live Elia! Long live our princess!"

Rhaenys was trying to tell her something, her eyes incredibly wide, but the noise drowned her voice. Those who had accompanied her to King's Landing were smiling; the few members of her entourage that had preferred following her instead of staying in the Crownlands where their only option would be to serve Rhaegar's now only queen or return to their families who had been quick to get rid of them by sending them to serve Elia in the first place, looked stunned by the enthusiastic welcome. Hating herself for her weakness, Elia cast a secret look behind, at the end of the procession where Arthur rode. He grinned at her, for a moment looking as young and carefree as he had been years ago. She smiled back and saw how his face lit up.

Her next look was for her father. Alric, too, was smiling but in his eyes, there was sadness that he could not completely chase away. Was he remembering all the years when he had been listening to these same crowds applauding Arianne? Was he thinking of Doran who had also been loved and cheered? For a moment, Elia saw him as he was – an aging man who had lost so many of those who had given his life meaning and light. But then he sat up straighter and his determination took over as usual. Elia even wondered whether she had seen this moment of weakness, or it had been all in her mind.

Each step leading her to the Old Palace made her more joyful, so she was not prepared for the grief that crashed all over her the moment the gates opened. This was her childhood home, the home of her joy, and now she returned as a mother without her son, a daughter without her mother, a sister without her brother, a woman in love who did not trust her beloved, a repudiated queen without the royal match she had left for nine years ago… Everything was different, so many and so much gone.

Oberyn appeared in the courtyard in the exact same moment as her; trembling, she let him assist her in dismounting and then, with a shock that jolted her, she felt him bowing his head to her hand, the one with the ring seal.

"My lady," he said formally, "I swear my fealty to you."

His voice was steady, his eyes – as hopeless as her own.

He had made preparations for their arrival – or rather, his paramour had done so. Elia was quite curious to see the woman her father spoke so fondly of. A lady who had been able to keep Oberyn Martell at her side for three years and win Alric Gargalen's appreciation, let alone Naeryn's friendship, was surely someone special.

"Do you want me to show you to your room, Rhaenys?" Oberyn asked. "Or would you rather stay with your mother for now?"

Rhaenys was staring at the portrait on the wall in the hall they were passing through. "Who is she?" she asked.

"This is Princess Daenerys," Elia explained. "She came here many years ago to marry Prince Maron Martell. You know the story."

Rhaenys nodded. "I'll stay with you, Mama," she said but she wasn't in a hurry to look aside from the other Targaryen princess who had come here because she had been told to.

Scared that she'd encounter her carefree past the moment she stepped into her old bedchamber, Elia was immensely relieved to see that everything had been refurnished. Not a single candleholder was where she had left them. The chamber shone in soft golden tones that made Rhaenys gasp in delight. "Mama!" she exclaimed. "You'll be living in the sun!"

Elia laughed, delighted by her daughter's spontaneous joy. When the handmaidens came, she sent them away. "Who needs them anyway?" she asked. "We can attend each other."

Rhaenys agreed immediately and they took a long rest in the carved bed before helping each other wash and braiding each other's hair for the feast.

"You can stay here and have your meal brought to you," Elia suggested. "You're tired."

But Rhaenys only smiled bravely. "I can't miss the feast," she said. "It would be unseemly."

Elia frowned, hairbrush still in hand. Who had been lecturing Rhaenys about seemly and unseemly things? Her septa? Or her grandmother? Elia knew for sure that it hadn't been her.

In the great hall, she had to suppress her desire to go to the seat she had occupied before; instead, she sat in her mother's seat, with Rhaenys next to her. Alric sat on his granddaughter's other side and Elia didn't miss the scowl on her daughter's face as Alric turned to say a few words to a boy about ten who was in no great hurry to take his own seat. Elia's breath caught and she shuddered in superstitious fear. He looked so much like his father! She had last seen him when he was but babe in arms. Again, she felt that feeling of loss, with a tiny flicker of hope. This boy did not look like Loreza at all but he was a little part of her, a little part of Gillerd. The Seven punished me, she thought all of a sudden. When the news about Gillerd's trial and verdict, about the scandal and Loreza's death had reached King's Landing, she had been unable to believe that her cousin was capable of such a cruelty. How could he leave without his son, she had wondered. Now, she had been faced with a similar choice and she had made the same decision with the same belief – that she was acting in her son's best interests. Staring at the seneschal Doran had appointed after old Racasso's death, Ciar of House Targaryen, she was suddenly struck by the thought that he might have been the King, had his circumstances been different. Had Jenny of Oldstones really been so unworthy of being queen? She could hardly imagine anyone being more unworthy than Aerys!

"Where is Ellaria?" Alric asked when the feast began. "I can't see her anywhere."

Oberyn shrugged. "At the Water Gardens. She decided to wait. Said that Elia and Rhaenys would need a few days to settle before adding new faces to the mix."

Alric nodded. "I should have known. This girl is nothing if not tactful. But I hoped to see her and the girls."

"You will," Oberyn promised. "Soon. I intend to take them here for the vow." He smiled. "A little company might do Rhaenys some good."

She did not show that she had heard him.

"You've heard some things about me, I take it?" he asked good-naturedly between bites of venison and although she vehemently denied, Elia realized that it'd take her a lot of time and effort to erase the anti-Dornish sentiments that had been delicately sewn here and there in her daughter's soul, to make her overcome the distrust to her mother's kin. The thought that Aegon might be taught the same things but much more overtly made her eyes swim.

"He isn't going to spend the day in front of her door, is he?" Oberyn asked, not bothering to lower his voice. "That's too… Kingsguardlike."

He spoke the last words with such disdain that Elia sighed, already feeling the first clash before the end of her first night in the Old Palace. Arthur's face didn't change as he kept giving orders to the household knights in a corner of another, smaller hall where the daily affairs were conducted. Elia did not stop him. She had promised Rhaegar that Arthur would be able to keep an eye on Rhaenys, whatever that meant. Right now, it clearly meant an obsession with her safety.

"I might make him her sworn shield," she said, and Oberyn huffed.

"Why not?" he said. "Let's give him the chance to sniff at what we do and say and relay it to his master, right? Why did you bring him along at all?"

The way he said it made it sound like Arthur was a dog on Rhaegar's leash. Not quite unfair, Elia thought as she absent-mindedly noticed the lingering look one of the knights was giving her. It felt so nice to be looked at with admiration and desire. Did he not act like an obedient dog when Rhaegar demanded that he betray me? Well, I'll honour my part of the deal: I'll give him what I promised Rhaegar, this and nothing more. I am home and I have a city to rebuild, justice to dispense, and my daughter to take care of, and I have sunlight that I haven't seen the like since I left. I don't need Arthur Dayne. I don't. I don't.