Nymeria

"Oberyn Nymeros Martell," Zavara spoke slowly, her words dripping off her tongue like rich golden treacle as she descended the stairs of her palatial abode with equal deliberation. She spoke the Common Tongue of Westeros, with a think Volantene accent. "After all these years your return, like the ….how do you say, the bad cat?"

Oberyn's brow furrowed for a moment. "I believe you mean the bad penny, Zava."

Zavara halted her descend down the winding staircase. "I am sure that there is one with a cat."

"Doubtless, but none of them apply."

Zavara rolled her eyes. "You barbarians have such strange idiom." She turned her gaze onto Nymeria. "And who is this that you have brought with you?"

Nymeria regarded her mother evenly. She had not been what Nym was expecting. She had never known her mother, who had shipped her out of Volantis when she was a baby to live with her father in Dorne, but when she had imagined one of the High Bloods of Old Volantis, when she had been borne in a litter into the Black City where only the pureblood might spend the night, when she had witnessed the colossal palace in which her mother dwelt…she had not expected the owner of the house to be so small. In fact, the woman was tiny, as small as Tyene, which made Nym glad that she had inherited her father's stature as well as his serpent eyes.

But she was beautiful. Nym had often thought that her mother must be something to look at, since she had always been so much better looking than Obara. It had been something to twit her half-sister with when they were not ruling the water gardens together. Clearly, while she had been fortunate enough to acquire her father's height, she took after her mother in her raven hair, her high sculpted cheekbones and her features that were paradoxically at once sharp and soft. Her eyes were brown flecked with gold, and they regard Nymeria evenly.

Father cleared his throat. "Zavara, allow me to present my daughter, Nymeria Sand. Our daughter."

Nymeria suddenly felt her mouth going dry as the desert sands of Dorne itself. "Mother."

Zavara became very still, and very silent. She descended the remaining marble stairs in equal silence. She advanced on Nymeria, hips swaying, moving like a predator, like a leopard stalking its prey. She did not stop until they were almost touching.

"My daughter," she whispered.

Nymeria breathed a sigh of relief. "Mother."

Zavara slapped her so hard the Nym staggered backwards.

"You bring her here?" Zavara yelled. "Twenty five years since you left and now you come back, begging a favour of me, and you bring my bastard daughter because you think it will help you sweeten my honey?"

Father cringed. "Sweeten the pot, Zava, and I thought you might want to meet your-"

"Bastard," Zavara said. "Do you know how long it took me to live down the shame?"

"Zava, you surprise me. I didn't know you had any shame."

Zavara snorted. "Do you know the reason I responded to your message. Do you know why I had you brought here? Because, after you left me pregnant and broken hearted, I have waited a very long time to get you in my claws, and now you have walked into my spider's web. Qorro!"

A burly Summer Islander, as black as coal and as tall as one of the towers that guarded the great bridge across Volantis, stepped out of the shadows and into the candle light that illuminated the spacious portico. In his hands he held a sword that was nearly as large as Lady Zavara, wickedly curved and deadly sharp.

Nym's hands went to the knives she wore concealed about her. "Your plan was to have your hireling kill my father."

"Trust me," Zavara said, grinning wickedly as she snatched the enormous scimitar out of her man's hands and twirled it expertly in her grasp. "I don't need his help for this."

A pair of daggers appeared in Nymeria's hands. "I see you like to fight your own battles," Nym said. "So do I. I must get that from you."

Zavara smirked. "Is that so? Then show me what you're capable of, Nymeria Sand."

Nym charged, and Zavara advanced to meet her. Their blades clashed once, twice, three times. Zavara was good. That sword looked absurdly oversized, especially in her tiny hands, but she wielded it with skill and precision. Every stroke went precisely where she wanted it to. Nym parried as her mother forced her back, feeling the jarring shocks running up her arm as the great blade struck home against her daggers. She lashed out, Zavara doged, then counterattacked with a blow that would have disembowelled an ox had not Nym gotten out of the way.

Neither woman was dressed for battle; Zavara was wearing a black silk dress, and Nym was draped in airy robes suited for the sun, and yet despite this neither of them slowed or was slowed by their apparel. Zavara attacked again and again, and yet even when she forced Nymeria away from Father, she never rounded him - Nym observed with the unoccupied portion of her mind that Father wasn't going out of his way to help her either - almost as if Nym, not Oberyn, were her true opponent. Certainly they were a good match, despite her size Zavara was strong and fast, it was almost like fighting Obara.

Almost, but not quite. As swift and strong as she was Zavara was also...predictable. Nym had held off her early blows, and now it seemed as though she could only repeat the same patterns, the same movements, the same angles of attack over and over again. But Nym had survived those angles, dodged those attacks, evaded all these blows before as Zavara pursued her around the marble antechamber like a cat. She had her mother's measure now, her speed, her strength, her technique. And she knew how to beat her.

Nym smirked. I could have been your daughter, mother, but instead you made me a snake. Now feel my fangs. And she attacked. Her knives whirled in her hands as she hurled herself forward. Obara liked to shout and scream in battle like some Dothraki wretch, but Nym's assault was as silent as all the dead her father had sent down to the seven hells. She preferred to let her knives do the shouting for her. She threw herself upon her mother, driving her back in a whirl of spinning blades, moving with a graceful precision as she beat down her mother's guard, and knocked the scimitar flying from her hands. She went for the killing blow, straight for the throat.

"Hold!" Father's barked command was sufficient to stop Nym in her tracks. "Nymeria, that is enough. So, Zava, are you satisfied?"

The look on Zavara's face was neither shocked, nor fearful. Instead she looked...impressed? Admiring? Was this all nothing but a test?

"You have taught her well," Zavara said. "If I had been trying to kill her she would be dead, but still...you have taught her well."

Nym snorted. "You expect me to believe that you were holding back."

"Believe what you wish, daughter," Zavara said, a smile spreading across her face. "But pray to your seven gods that we never fight in earnest." She turned away, and began to walk out of the antechamber and into the recesses of her cavernous home. "Come, both of you, let us talk of what I may do for you, and why I ought to do it."

"Your lingering affection for me does not compel you?" Oberyn asked jovially. "Or your love for your daughter?"

Zavara half turned in the doorway. "If you wanted to appeal to my lingering affection, Oberyn, you should not have brought your new mistress. As for my daughter...love is love, but gold is gold, and the one cannot make the other. Come."

Nym sheathed her daggers as Zavara walked away. "That is my mother?"

"Not what you expected?" Father said, a smile playing across his face.

"Not especially."

Oberyn chuckled, and patted her on the shoulder. "Come, let us see if our appeals can move her at all."

They quickly caught up with Zavara, who led them through a house decorated in gold and blue and crimson, the golden on the walls glimmering under the light of the sun that fell in through the many windows set high up near the ceiling. Death masks, images of the faces of Zavara's ancestors - my ancestors, Nym thought - lined the walls, each one with a candle burning beneath them, the firelight emerging through the open mouth and vacant eyes of the white plaster masks. They seemed to stare at her, judging her, weighing her in the balance to see if she was worthy of the noble line from which she was descended.

She had always known that she was of the Martell blood, but never before had she really considered that she was of an equally ancient lineage upon her mother's side as well.

"Our line is descended from Niqarro the Elephant, who conquered Lys and Tyrosh for Volantis in the Century of Blood," Zavara declared proudly, as though she could guess at Nym's thoughts as they walked through the manse. "And from Demerro the Besieger, who crushed the savages of Mantarys and reduced that city to our client. You are the daughter of Oberyn Martell, but what is House Martell of Dorne? Andals and Rhoynar, savages! Barbarians who have barely stopped living in caves, or on boats. You are the blood of Old Volantis, firstborn and favoured daughter of Valyria, and that is a thing of greater honour by far. Remember that."

Nymeria swallowed the unexpected lump she felt gathering in her throat. "I shall."

"Sit," Zavara said, gesturing to a couple of spindly, slightly over-decorated chairs. She herself flopped down onto a plush black settee, resting her head upon a trio of gold velvet cushions. She put one hand to her mouth; the gold bracelet around her arm glittered in the light. It was shaped like a serpent eating its own tail.

"So, Oberyn," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"A ship to Meereen," Oberyn said.

"Meereen, Meereen, all the talk is of Meereen," Zavara said. "You want to fuck the dragon queen, is that it? You and every other man from here to Pentos. Wait long enough and she will be shipped to some Lysene brothel, you can find here there."

"You think she will lose?"

"How can she win, when the whole world is against her?"

"Perhaps you should ask the Astapori or the Yunkish how well that's worked out for them," Nym suggested.

Zavara smirked. "You have a sharp tongue, Nymeria, but Meereen is not Astapor or Yunkai. It will not be taken by surprise, nor will it be so foolish as to march out and offer battle on the open field against an army of Unsullied. Meereen is large and wealthy and its walls are strong. It will not fall."

"But if it does?" Nym asked.

Zavara's look hardened. "Slavery is the lifeblood of the East. From New Ghis to Volantis to Myr and Tyrosh all the way to Qarth the slave ships sail. The Braavosi would have it said that it is their iron bank that drives the wealth of Essos, but in truth the world is made rich by the clanking of the chains and the groaning of the slaves and the blood of all of those that we keep in bondage. And now this dragon bitch, this Targaryen, this tainted half-breed Valyrian who has lost all honour and dignity through her infection of barbarian blood, she seeks to…what? To set the slaves free? To strike off their chains so that they may dance happily through the fields calling her mother? It is insane."

"And dangerous to people like you," Oberyn observed.

"If this so-called Queen thinks to overturn the foundation of our world then Volantis will stop her," Zavara said. "Already there is talk of war, and the talk will only grow louder if Meereen does fall. Which it will not, but, if it does…you have a dangerous destination in mind, Oberyn. Does your new mistress so fatigue you that you must seek out the last Targaryen for a good fucking."

"It is not for pleasure that I seek Meereen," Oberyn said, a smile playing across his lips. "As tempting as the idea is…I am sent on command by my brother, the prince of Dorne."

"Why?"

"You cannot expect me to tell you that."

"You cannot expect me to help you without knowing what I am helping you to do," Zavara said. "Are you this girl's enemy, or her friend? You know that if I am known to bring succour to the one who seeks to turn our world upside down I would be torn apart by my fellow High Bloods."

"What if you were know to have solved your Targaryen problem with recourse to war?" Nym asked.

Zavara's eyes narrowed. "What are you suggesting?"

"Nym," Oberyn murmured, a warning in his tone.

Nymeria looked at him. "When will a Volantene High Blood speak to any spy of Varys'? She will not help us if she doesn't know what we're doing?"

"What are you doing?"

Oberyn shifted in his seat. "We are sent to bring the Targaryen and her dragons back to Dorne, to put her on the Iron Throne of Westeros."

Zavara was silent for a moment, her eyebrows raised, her eyes slightly wide. Then she began to laugh. "You are sent to…you mean you want a ship so you can take the bane of slavery over to another continent so she can rule over the barbarians? Yes, that would solve our problem, I admit. Not as finally as killing her, but it would solve our problem."

"So you will help us?" Nym asked.

"No," Zavara said. "Why should I?"

Nym frowned. "But you just said-"

"You make a mistake, Lady Nym, if you think a Volantene will ever act out of anything approaching altruism," Oberyn muttered.

Zavara chuckled. "He knows me better than you do, daughter, for all that we are blood. If I give you a ship what will you give me in return?"

Zavara shifted her leg, causing her dress to fall in such a way as to reveal her thing. She laughed. "No, not that, for all that you may be thinking it. You were not so good a lover that I would do you this good service for one more night of ecstatic pleasure, nor am I so cruel that I would make you treat your present harlot so."

"Ellaria would probably enjoy a threesome," Oberyn suggested, in a tone that was almost hopeful, and made Nym look askance at him.

Zavara snorted. "Tempting, but no. For this, I must ask something greater of you."

"Then what do you want?"

Zavara smiled like a wolf. "A dragon's egg."

"I see," Oberyn murmured. "And what makes you think that I have such a thing?"

Zavara rolled her eyes. "Do not play dumb with me, Oberyn, the girl has three dragons, and where three dragons are then eggs will follow. And you will give one to me. You will sign in blood upon your honour to do so ere you have a ship from me."

"And what will you do with a dragon's egg? Sell it?"

"Gods forbid," Zavara said. "I will hatch it, and complete the work of the Century of Blood. After all, what is it you say: if you mean to conquer the world, best have dragons?"

Nym chuckled. "What makes you think you could hatch a dragon egg if you had one?"

"Anything a mere Targaryen can do, one of the oldest of the old blood, a descendant of the Elephant and the Besieger, can surely do as well, if not better," Zavara declared eagerly. "Do we have a deal, or don't we?"

Oberyn's nod was small, and simple. "You realise, Zava, that from my perspective you ask little, and promise much?"

"I ask for what I want, and give you what I want," Zavara replied. "Is there a better way to do business? I will have the agreement drawn up, and once you have signed-"

"In blood."

"Yes, in blood, then you will have your ship, bound for Meereen. No captain will eagerly make the journey, but my name and wealth will convince them to do it anyway."

"I can be found at the Merchant's House," Oberyn said as he rose to his feet.

"Of course you are, everyone can be found at the Merchant's House," Zavara said dismissively. "Fawning over that old whore. Still, you will hear from me." She sat up. "But before you go there is one more thing that I must show my daughter. Bring her in!"

There were a few moments when nothing happened, and then a nurse entered, old and brown-skinned and with white hair and a back beginning to stoop but arms that remained strong. In her arms, her legs dangling, was a little girl, of no more than about one or two years old, her face framed with tangled black curls, an innocently joyous smile upon her face as she murmured indistinctly.

Zavara stood up, a slight smile crossing her sharp features. "Nymeria Sand, meet Talisa, your sister."

Nym's breath caught in her throat. "My…my sister?"

"She is my daughter, as you are," Zavara said. "Therefore she must be your sister, no?"

"You kept this one," Oberyn observed.

"Of course, she is my only child by my late husband."

"You married?"

"Briefly. Bentarro suffered a tragic accident soon after the birth of his daughter. A slave accidentally threw him off the roof. Terrible mistake, I had the slave killed immediately, of course."

"Of course."

"So now I am alone, save only the consolation that is Talisa." Zavara sighed. "Very sad."

"The child must console you greatly."

"I wouldn't have kept her if she didn't," Zavara said. To Nym, she added, "You may approach her."

Nym shuffled forward warily. She wasn't really sure what the point of this was. She had kept away from the younger sand snakes until they were old enough to appreciate her brilliance without throwing up all over her expensive dresses. Elia and Obella she liked well enough, but she didn't have much to do with Loreza or Dorea, because at that age they were just more trouble than they were worth. You couldn't teach them anything, and they didn't really do anything either. But still…a sister. A sister all my own, not just a sand snake. She had nothing against her sisters, and the…unusual bond that the eight of them shared was something special, but it was still shared between eight of them all the same. They had one another, as much as you could have people whom you sometimes wanted to kill, but they all had one another all the same, and all had father all the same, more or less. But this…Talisa…this sister. This was hers, and only hers, and hers alone. She was Talisa's only sister in all the world, and that was something that none of the other sand snakes could say about anyone else.

And so she bent over, and looked into the little girls eyes, and cooed at her like some moonstruck fool. "Hello."

"Heya," the girl gurgled, reaching out to grab Nym's hair.

"Talisa," Zavara said. "This is your sister, Nymeria."

"Call me Nym."

"Nym-ah."

"Close enough between the two," Nymeria said.

"If you fail," Zavara said, her voice becoming hard, and cold, and even a little fearful. "If you do not take this queen away from here, then Talisa's world will die. Perhaps she will die, if our slaves tear down this city."

Nym disentangled herself from Talisa's grip. "Then I won't fail."

For the sister that only I have.