He has been praying for a girl, a girl with her mother's laughing eyes, a girl who would grow to be a proud and wise Princess of Dorne like her grandmother, a girl who would not have to be sent away from home to pay a blood debt to the Yronwoods.
Here she is now, that girl he has been praying for, their beloved daughter, his and Mellario's, their firstborn, safe and snug in her mother's arms. Her eyes are still closed, but she is not sleeping, as evidenced by the firm grip of her tiny fingers enveloping her father's little finger.
"She has your eyes, I am certain of it," Mellario declares, her palm gently caressing their daughter's cheek.
"I would rather that she has yours," Doran replies, kissing his wife's forehead. My love, he adds, in his head, in his heart, but the phrase is not one that comes easily to his lips. His brother would not have had any trouble saying it out loud, Doran knows.
My love.
Did you call her 'my love', Oberyn, Lord Yronwood's paramour?
He banishes the thought quickly. His brother is paying the price as well, the price of the blood debt to the Yronwoods, even if it is not to be paid in the currency of Oberyn's own child. Oberyn would have to stay away from Dorne, from his home, from his mother and brother and sister, for some time to come, Doran and his mother had both agreed, to assuage the Yronwood's anger and to soothe their wounded pride, and most importantly, to prevent any bloodshed. It is exile that is never called exile, exile that Oberyn in his letters to Elia would declare - perhaps a shade too insistently to be fully believed - to be the best thing that could have happened to him, for it brings with it only freedom and grand adventures, and no hardship at all.
Doran's heart aches for his brother; though, he could not help but wonder, how differently and perhaps less generously he would be feeling towards Oberyn at the moment, if this child, this firstborn of his and Mellario had been born a boy, a boy who would have to be surrendered to the Yronwoods to pay the blood debt incurred by Oberyn. And what will happen when their next child turns out to be a boy? That poor, innocent child. And Mellario ... innocent, unknowing Mellario, who has done nothing to deserve -
Mellario is staring at him. "Is something wrong? You look so ... miserable." Her pause seems to last forever, before she finally continues, "Are you not glad that we have a daughter? Would you have preferred a son instead? You said it does not matter if I never give you a son. You said sons and daughters are valued equally here in Dorne. You promised me that."
There is hurt in her eyes and in her voice, hurt and confusion and even a trace of anger. The ghost of the girl whose mother dies in her many efforts to give her husband a son, the former heiress supplanted by a stepbrother born after she is already a woman grown, lingers still in Mellario.
"Nothing is wrong," Doran tries to reassure his wife, striving hard to rearrange his face, to banish the worry and the concern from his expression, to put a smile on his lips.
"Nothing is wrong, my love," he whispers, finally saying those two words out loud. "She is perfect. Our daughter is perfect."
Mellario smiles too, finally. Her gaze lingers on Doran for a while longer, before shifting to their daughter.
"Look," she exclaims, "the little one has finally decided to open her eyes."
What does she see, Doran wonders, this babe wrenched out of the comfort and safety of her mother's womb to be thrown into a strange world, this world where some debt must be paid with children as coins?
"Arianne," Mellario says. "Her name is Arianne, like we agreed.
Doran nods. Their daughter would not be named after any ancestor or relative on either side, dead or alive, Doran had promised Mellario. "I do not want her to live under a constant shadow, forever expected to measure up to the deeds of the other illustrious bearers of that name," Mellario had said.
When she hands him Arianne, the weight of the child surprises him the most. So small, so fragile, so defenseless a creature; he had almost convinced himself that in his arms she would feel as light as air. He holds her, but holds her away from his body, as if trying to keep her at arm's length.
"She will not bite," Mellario teases him. "Hold her closer."
He brings the child closer to his chest, all the while thinking, I am afraid. Afraid of her and for her, afraid of all the ways he could wreck everything for her, could ruin her life before it truly begins.
Do you fear that too, my love? He yearns to ask his wife this, but as is too often the case, the words are silenced somewhere between him thinking it, and saying it out loud.
(Silence is a prince's friend, but perhaps a husband's enemy. A father's too. It will take him many years from now to see this, to truly understand this.)
He kisses his daughter's cheek, then her forehead, and finally the top of her head. He pretends to his wife that his tears are tears of joy and only joy. Finally, he looks at his daughter's eyes. Transfixed, his gaze lingers there for a long while, before he transferred it to Mellario's eyes.
When he tells his wife, "She has your eyes, our daughter," what he means is, I see hope in her eyes, the same hope I see in yours.
He prays that he will have the courage to share in that hope.