"Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing." - Richard Siken

Chapter 3

The differences between Sunspear and Winterfell were staggering to Mal. While she knew that Winterfell would be nothing like her childhood home, it had never occurred to her how different the two places could really be. For one thing, Sunspear seemed to always be teeming with people. Workers, beggars, servants to the palace, it was almost stifling to live there for long periods of time you could not wander the halls of the palace without bumping into numerous amounts of servants along the way. The overpopulation of Sunspear is one of the reasons her family would take any excuse they could to visit the Water Gardens. Winterfell on the other hand seemed calmer; at least that's what Mal could tell from the window of her litter. While they did have its many servants and villagers doing their daily chores, they all seemed to have a purpose; there was no lolly-gagging to be seen at the winter fortress. Winterfell seemed to be much more efficient then the organized chaos of Sunspear.

"It's a hard life they live," Mal reasoned to herself. "There's no time or energy to be wasted to cause a ruckus, they work as if their lives depend on it and if the rumors of Northern winters are true, then their lives certainly do count on it."

She felt the litter slow down into a stop signifying that they had arrived. "And so here we are after a month at sea and traveling it is finally time for the Dornish princess and the Northern heir to meet. Hopefully my Uncle Oberyn will be able to behave himself for the next few days. A Northern bastard cousin is not the wedding present I had in mind.

It wasn't every day that visitors arrived at Winterfell it was far away from King's Landing and Lord Stark was not fond of entertaining guest much to the chagrin of the eldest Stark girl, Sansa. For the rest of the Starks, they too didn't like it when visitors arrived because their mother ended up driving everyone crazy. Lady Catelyn was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to these types of things. The whole household was turned upside down while servants were running around to do all that Lady Catelyn ordered. As busy as the Lady of Winterfell was she still had time to order her family into dressing in their best and grooming themselves to perfection. She even spared a moment or two to berate Theon for spending all night drinking and making a mess in the hallway outside of his room.

Now it seemed all the madness was worth it for the entire Stark household was dressed to the nines while standing in the courtyard of Winterfell. A clean-shaven Robb frowned as he stared at the gates of Winterfell, any second his future bride would come through those gates and change his life forever

"If you keep frowning like that your face will stay that way. I don't think your wife will like that." Eddard Stark joked to his eldest son.

Robb jerked out of his thoughts and look up at his father, he nodded and was going to respond when he heard the neighing of horses quickly approaching the gates. It was like nothing the Stark household had ever seen. The Horses and their riders were wearing colorful clothes with armor shining brighter than any armor seen before in the North; it seemed that wherever the Dornish went the sun followed. Robb heard Theon snort behind him. "Arrogant peacocks, the whole lot of them."

Eddard Stark stepped out of line to greet the visiting Dornish party. He embraced a darkly handsome older man with a blood red cloak. "Oberyn," The Warden of the North greeted the Dornish prince warmly. "How have you been old friend?"

Oberyn looked around and grinned at Eddard. "Bloody cold, Gods' blood Ned, how do manage to keep warm here? My poor niece, she'll in a block of ice within a week. That is if your son fails to warm her bed." He let out a bark at that.

Eddard knew Oberyn too well to rise to his teasing. "You have nothing to worry about; your niece will be perfectly fine here. Speaking of her, where is she?"

Oberyn sobered up and put on his most serious face. He bowed his head to Eddard before bowing lowly to Catelyn and her children. "Eddard of the House Stark: Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I, Oberyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, do hereby present to you my darling niece, daughter of Prince Doran of Dorne and Lady Mellario of Norvos: Princess Mal Martell of Dorne. "

At his words Mal stepped out of the litter with her veil tightly secured over her head. She made her way over to the Starks and curtsied very low. "It's a pleasure to meet you all; I'm very pleased to be here."

"'I'm very pleased to be here?' Was that really the best I could do? But what can you say to complete strangers? 'Thank you for buying my father's favor in order for your son to wed a princess, thank you for taking me away from my family and childhood home that I will more than likely never see again? What do you say to the people who have taken away everything you've ever known only to give you the promise of an uncertain future in an unknown land?"

Lord Stark looked warmly at his future good-daughter. "We're pleased to have you here as well, princess." Lord stark began to introduce Mal to his family. "It will certainly take a while to remember their names." Mal thought as she moved through the line of Starks. It was clear to Mal that most of the children had inherited the Tully looks of their mother, with an exception of Arya. "She's as wild as the North, this one. But out of five Starks only one truly looks like a Stark, how strong those Tully genes must truly be. If the Gods grant us children I wonder what my children would look like: Tully, Stark or Martell."

"And here is your betrothed, my son Robb." Lord Stark proudly stated as the pair stopped in front of Robb.

Robb took the princess's hand and gave it a light kiss. "I'm happy that you've finally arrived, my lady. Ever since the news of our betrothal I have been anxiously awaiting for your arrival. I hope you find Winterfell to your satisfaction." He finished with a strained smile.

"Ho ho, I see this puppy has been trained very well. It must have been his Southern mother. These Northerners have no time for pretty, flowery speech, that's a pure Southern trait. 'Anxiously waiting for you arrival', eh? I doubt it, but he does play the part of a happily betrothed man well. Better yet, he's as handsome as any man in Dorne. He's a Tully, there's no doubt about that but there's something in his eyes that scream Stark, he could be interesting."

Mal decided to go along with this courtly play of romance to please her uncle and future good-parents. "That makes the two of us. I have been waiting eagerly for the moment the two of us would meet. Tales of your good-nature and kindness have reached all the way to Dorne and have comforted me during my brief moments of doubt. Believe me, my lord; from the looks of things I think Winterfell will be very satisfying to me." Mal internally grinned when she saw Robb's ears turn red out of embarrassment "Poor pup, he turns red at the tiniest bit of teasing. I can only imagine how red he would turn if Arianne got her claws into him."

After their meeting Lady Stark had servants show her into her new rooms while the others of her party were housed as well. Lady Stark had informed her that a feast was going to be held in her honor that night. Something that Mal, while honored, wasn't very comfortable with. The idea of sitting in a hall in front of strangers, especially with that damn veil stuck on her head, didn't seem to be very comforting thought to her.

Looking around her rooms she noted with satisfaction that everything seemed clean and cozy. The furs on her bed were brand new and soft to the touch. There was a small fire in the fireplace that lit up the room in a warm, seductive light. Again, she couldn't help but note the differences between Winterfell and Dorne. In Dorne the windows would be bigger, to allow more natural light in and more of the occasional breeze that would hit Sunspear. Here in Winterfell it was the opposite but Mal loved every inch of it. "Even if nothing happens in my marriage, at least I have this room."

"I was right! She is as ugly as a shadowcat." Theon gleefully announced as he strolled into Robb's rooms where Robb and Jon were busy getting ready for the night's feast. His head was pounding after the drinking of the night before, but Theon still couldn't help but tease his oldest (and if he was honest with himself, his only friend) over his intended.

"How can you tell, she's wearing a veil?" Jon stanchly asked him.

"Exactly, why else would she be wearing a veil if she wasn't an ugly one? I do not envy you at all, Robb." Theon said while fixing up his doublet. That was a lie, of course. Theon was jealous, it wasn't fair to him that Robb should be married, that just cemented the fact that one day Robb would be Lord of Winterfell; while Theon, who was a few years older, had gone years without hearing from his father. Had he stayed on the Iron Islands there was no doubt in his mind that would be the ruling lord of a keep by now, with a lady wife and a few salt wives on the side.

Robb frowned and shook his head. "She's not ugly. She's wearing the veil because of Dornish tradition. We're not allowed to see her face until the wedding. I think if she was ugly we would have heard about it by now." Robb was thankful that he had read all of those books on Dorne, if he didn't, he probably would have been thinking along the same lines as Theon. "Besides, she's very… forward." He felt his face heat up as he remembered her suggestive words.

"She's Dornish," Theon stated dryly. "Even their ugliest cows are hot-blooded."

Despite her initial fears the feast had gone off without a single hitch. Despite Lady Catelyn apologizing profusely over Arya's outburst over why Mal wore a veil, Mall had thought her endearing and was happy to answer the inquisitive Stark's questions. Even her Uncle Oberyn was enjoying himself with the women of the North. Something that Mal cringed to see; while she knew her uncle wasn't always faithful to his paramour she still didn't like to see the proof of it right in her face. Though at the beginning of the feast she was seated next to her uncle and the rest of the Dornish party towards the end of the feast Mal had found herself sitting next to her husband-to-be and she found herself studying him.

"He's shy, quite unlike the men of Dorne. Had I been engaged to a Dornish nobleman, he would have been already trying to charm me into his bed. The most daring of them would have tried sneaking their hands under my skirts. I daresay if I tried slipping my hands in his lap right now he would die of a heart attack at the table. Surely there must be some fire inside of him somewhere. While I may not be as lusty as Arianne I still would hate to spend the rest of my life in a cold bed." She looked around to study Robb's companions. "This Greyjoy, he would do well in Dorne. He's as lecherous as my uncle, there's no doubt about his fire. There's no worry about a cold bed when dealing with him. Yet, he's extremely arrogant, I feel sorry for any woman who's stuck marrying him. I wonder how many bastards he has running around? Soon he'll give my uncle a run for his money," Mal turned her attention to the quietest member of the group, Jon Snow. "Now there's a Stark, serious, humorless, and as dark as the direwolf that birthed their sigil. For all of Robb's shy seriousness, Jon outshines him as a true Stark. How strange he is, the complete opposite of my bastard cousins. I can tell that he thinks himself lower than his noble-born siblings. Obara would cut the head off of anyone who would dare try to make her feel less important than my siblings and I. Perhaps, one day, when I am Lady of Winterfell I'll arrange a marriage between the two," Mal snickered behind the thick lace veil, "maybe not, she'd eat him alive."

"Are you enjoying the feast?" Robb asked his future bride, he'd been spending the night trying to gather the courage to speak to her; there was something about her that made him feel like a little boy again. He seemed to have broken into her thoughts by the way she quickly jerked her head to him. He couldn't see much through her dark veil, but he could tell her eyes had widened when she registered that he was speaking to her.

"Oh yes, very much so." It was a lie, the food seemed bland to her after years of eating spicy Dornish cuisine everything else was tasteless to her. Even the wine was too dull for her. "I suppose after a few years, I shall get used to it."

Robb smiled softly at her "I know that it must be very different from Dorne, we don't use the same spices and flavorings, but in the future, if you wish it, I can send for a gardener to bring seeds for Dornish peppers so you can have them in your foods and we can send for Dornish wine too. We don't drink it much here we're more ale folk, we only drink it for occasions of state and it's usually from the arbor… my mother's fond of it." He finished bashfully.

Mal had the grace to blush, though Robb had no idea thanks to the veil. "He's much more observant than I thought." "Thank you, but will my peppers be able to survive in this weather?"

Robb chuckled at that, a sound that Mal found very attractive. "We have a greenhouse here on the grounds. It might not be as hot as you're used to in Dorne but it is much hotter than normal here in Winterfell. I think your peppers will do fine. I can show it to you tomorrow if you'd like?"

"Shall you show me before or after the wedding?" She lightly teased him. "Whichever you prefer, my lady." He teased back to her.

Mal scooted closer to Robb and lowered her voice before addressing him. "I think we'll be too busy after the wedding to worry about greenhouses or peppers." Mal laughed with pleasure as Robb's ears turned a dark shade of red for the second time that day.

"Oh Robb Stark, I think you and I are going to have a very interesting marriage."

A/N: I really wanted to add in the wedding but I didn't want to make this too long. So the next chapter will be the wedding and consequentially the wedding night.

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