Sansa and Ellaria walked into the arena where Tyrion Lannister's trial by combat would be held with Oberyn between them. They were accompanied by Brienne of Tarth and Ser Deamon Sand, Oberyn's squire, who brought an assortment of spears. The crowds were roaring behind the royal box, as if this was a spectacle. "There are fighting pits in Slaver's Bay where man is pitted against man for sport," Oberyn told Sansa. "These people are no different than those who pay to see such a sight in Essos."
"Then give them a show that they won't forget and live to tell the tale," Sansa told him. It was a command from his wife and he would honor it.
When Tyrion Lannister emerged from his cell and into the pavilion where they were, the first thing he did was to examine Oberyn from top to bottom and said, "That looks like very light armor." Oberyn was donned in red leather armor, the same shade as would be found on the handle of Nymeria's whip, Ellaria had told Sansa. Nymeria had asked for the leftover leather used to make that very set of armor for her whip. The Dornish wore only leather armor because they would bake in the sun had they used steel plate armor like the rest of Westeros. It contributed greatly to their emphasis on speed and agility alongside skill, unlike their counterparts who valued strength above all.
"I like to move around," Oberyn returned, holding both Sansa and Ellaria close to him while Tyrion quipped that he should have worn a helmet at the very least.
"There are more Gold Cloaks here than I expected," Sansa noted to her husband and his lover. The glint from their golden armor was not easy to miss, especially when they were all underneath the sun. The Gold Cloaks were not only in the stands to keep order, but had double-row formations at the foot of the stands.
Brienne did not like their presence either. "They have something planned," she proclaimed. "I'll get to the bottom of this."
"Brienne, you'll only be springing the trap early," Oberyn told his wife's sworn sword. "Any sudden move and the Goldcloaks will have us all skewered."
"So what do you propose?" Brienne demanded, highly getting used to the informality of Oberyn's household.
"We continue with the show," Oberyn replied, taking a hearty gulp of wine.
Tyrion was very, very uneasy from what he saw Oberyn doing. "You shouldn't drink before a fight," he added to the list of things that his champion should or should not be doing.
Oberyn chuckled. "You learned this during your years in the fighting pits?" he asked Tyrion jokingly. "I always drink before a fight." They said that alcohol was liquid courage, and so it was for him. It was a habit that he had gained when he had joined the Second Sons. Oh, how much money he had brought to them when he was among them. They were so rich that there was plenty of wine and women for everyone in the company.
"It could get you killed," Tyrion reasoned. "It could get me killed." He looked towards Sansa, who seemed to be the one who could at least talk some sense into him, but she could only shake her head. She had already tried all that she could with Oberyn.
"Today is not the day I die," Oberyn stressed.
Then the crowds cheered. Ser Gregor Clegane had finally showed up. He was a greater beast of a man than Sansa had remembered him to be. She must have immediately clung to Oberyn, because she felt his hold over her waist tighten.
"You're going to fight that?" Ellaria exclaimed in half terror, her eyes trained upon Ser Gregor. The ground seemed to quiver slightly whenever he took a step to her.
"I'm going to kill that," Oberyn reassured her.
"He's the biggest man I've ever seen!"
"Size does not matter when you are flat on your back."
"Thank the Gods," Tyrion said, interrupting the exchanged between Ellaria and Oberyn.
Sansa remained silent. "Something's wrong," she announced. She was watching everything carefully with those large blue eyes of hers. The air was tense, too tense for her liking. "The Queen's looking incredibly sure of herself, as if she's something planned."
"She's planning to see me die, Princess," Tyrion declared. "Of course she'll have that smug look on her pretty face."
Tyrion had not seen Cersei during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Cersei had that exact same face when she had all the ladies huddled with her in Maegor's Holdfast when the fighting broke out. She in her beautifully armored gown, had tasked Ser Ilyn Payne do kill all them all if the Red Keep was breached. Oh, Sansa knew that face on Cersei Lannister very well.
"Remember what I told you last night," Oberyn reminded Brienne. The minute he fell, she would escort Sansa and Ellaria with Ser Daemon to the harbor where a Dornish ship would be ready to take them to Lannisport, to Robb Stark for protection. They were to kill anyone who stood in their way.
"I will, my Prince," Brienne promised. "Princess Sansa and Ellaria would be safe with Ser Daemon and I." Ser Daemon merely nodded and continued to polish Oberyn's spear.
"Don't leave us alone in this world," Ellaria pleaded Oberyn, bringing Sansa with her as they regarded him for one last time before he entered the arena.
He gave each of them long, fervent kisses. "I'll never leave you both," he promised them, holding them both close to him. Pressing his lips to Sanas's forehead, he added, "I will honor my promise to you, and when this is done we will see your family before we move back to Dorne."
Her heart had soared when he said those words, but she knew that she could not be so selfish. He had other things to live for. "Just put your attention to staying alive," she told him. "Worry about that later."
With a kiss to each of their hands, Oberyn left for the arena with the spear that Ser Daemon had thrown to him.
"Are all the precautions in place?" Cersei asked the captain of the Gold Cloaks.
"We have crossbows all over the arena, Your Grace," the Gold Cloak replied. "Nothing untoward would happen."
Cersei nodded. "The safety of the arena is of paramount importance," she said and dismissed him before her father came to sit beside her. After acknowledging Tywin's presence, Cersei turned towards Prince Oberyn in his pavilion. He had openly displayed his wife and his paramour before all to see, the two wenches dressed in formal Dornish gowns of revealing but flowing gowns.
Her eyes met Sansa's, and she found only ice and steel in them. She had forgotten precisely when, but the pliable, malleable little dove from Winterfell had disappeared. It her place was this Northern beast that stood next to that southern snake of a Dornish prince, looking as if she was ready to swallow her whole. Oh, Sansa still sang the songs the little dove once sang, but her eyes, those sickeningly blue Tully eyes told more than just lies in order to preserve her own life.
Sansa would sing and sing but her eyes told her that once day, she would take everything from Cersei. Judging how kind fate was to her now, she half expected her dead Direwolf to return to the realm of the living and bite her.
"Look at that disgusting display," Cersei commented when Oberyn kissed his lover and wife one after the other. The two women held each other when he left their pavilion, as though they shared more than just one man.
Varys was the only one who seemed to want to humor her. "Your Grace, I believe in Dorne, it is quite a common thing," Varys reminded her. "Although, I wonder what the Princess' Northern relatives would say about it. They're so uptight about these things..."
"Her mother would weep at how she's been openly put on display next to his whore," Cersei answered Varys' rhetorical question. The Tully words were "Family, Duty, Honor," and Oberyn had done no such thing to his young wife. However, she knew that Sansa did not care about little details like that. Her Dornish prince had brought her to a place where the little dove that she was could not follow.
"If the two of you are quite done, I am ready to watch the trial now," Tywin hissed at them, subtly telling them to keep their mouths shut.
Cersei held her peace. She wanted to see how well the Gods favored her little brother, and she hoped that they would spit on him.
Oberyn emerged from the pavilion after Ser Daemon threw him his spear. As per habit, he twirled it around, displaying his mastery of the weapon, showing off his fancy footwork that Brienne had reduced to "jumping around". The crowds seemed to like that he was doing. They were all "oohs" and "aahs" until he stopped. He regarded Gregor Clegane when they were given permission to start their fight. He was huge and lumbering, akin to a giant. Giants were clumsy, and they were easy to fell.
"Have they told you who I am?" he asked the Mountain.
"Some dead man," was his reply. The man was not only large, but he carried a deep tenor as well, as befitting his size.
"I am the brother of Elia Martell," he continued when they started to attack one another. The first few blows were tests. They were testing the abilities of their opponent, judging the speed of one another's movements, their strength and their strategies, or at least, that was what Oberyn was doing. He did not know about the Mountain. "Do you know why I have come all the way to this stinking shit-pile of a city?"
There was no answer from the Mountain. He easily parried Oberyn's first strike, and the other one. When he raised his sword for a blow of his own, the Dornish prince lunged backwards, his armor barely grazed.
"I am going to hear you confess before you die," Oberyn continued. "You raped my sister. You murdered her. You killed her children. Say it now and we can make this quick." His blood was already boiling the moment he saw the Mountain and he wanted the whole world to know that it was Tywin Lannister who ordered the deaths of his sister and her children.
More blows were exchanged, and he realized that it would be a battle of attrition. He had chosen the right weapon. Even if they were roughly at the same lengths, the Mountain's sword was far too heavy to be wielded easily like his own spear. Thus, the Mountain had to make calculated movements, focusing on the economy of his strength while he could attack whenever and however he wanted. All he needed to do was to somehow ensure that the Mountain would not be able to attack him.
Oberyn's thoughts were interrupted by a rather successful kick on Clegane's part. He swore that he had flown a few feet from where he once stood. At the corner of his eye, he could see Ellaria with her furrowed brow, holding her fingers together as she watched and Sansa with that blank expression she always wore at court. He remembered what he had promised her, that he would keep his head, that he would remain calm no matter what happened.
"My loves, I will return to you in a moment's time," he shouted towards them, surely causing the ladies who watched them to swoon. Ellaria sent a flying kiss to him while Sansa, Sansa nodded and gestured towards the Mountain who was already running towards him.
He had anticipated that the Mountain would strike him from the left, judging by his body language, and he was right. After deflecting the heavy attack, Oberyn angled his spear and pierced the Mountain's knee. When his opponent bent over, he pulled out the spear and thrust it into the Mountain's stomach.
It did not seem that it was enough to stop the Mountain, although a normal man would have already keeled over and died. As Gregor Clegane tried to stand on remaining good foot, he noticed that Oberyn had left a gap when he switched his hands as he twirled his spear around. He immediately thrust his sword through the opening, only to find Oberyn successfully twisting his sword away from his hands.
With the greatsword well out of the Mountain's hands, Oberyn knew that it was the time for him to strike. When Clegane made to retrieve his sword, Oberyn pierced his spear cleanly through his wrist. Lowering the grip on the staff of the spear, and pulling hard on the opposite direction, he started to pry the Mountain's palm away from his arm.
"Say it," he hissed coolly. "You raped her, you murdered her, you killed her children." Still there was no answer from the Mountain. All he had was a grunt by the Mountain, trying to get to his sword even as his hand was hanging to the stump of his palm by a thread of sinew.
Oberyn easily leaped away from Clegane's trajectory and picked up his greatsword. The thing was monstrously heavy, but it was not utterly difficult to wield. In fact, it was quite well-balanced for its size, and thus ending the mystery of how a man with all-brawn could manage to use it. In one clean stroke, the entire left arm of the Mountain fell off, and Gregor Clegane roared in pain. However, even without arms, the Mountain could still be a danger. To remedy that, Oberyn moved to the side and swung another blow from the high guard with all his strength. The Mountain's legs were now severed from the knee down.
The Mountain was now lying in a pool of his own blood, so great that he almost seemed to be floating. He would soon die of blood loss. If Oberyn wanted a confession, he would have to get it now.
"Who ordered you?" he demanded, his voice bellowing in the wind.
"Ty... Tywin Lannis...ter."
Too bad it was nary a whisper, but now Oberyn had his proof and it was enough for him.
The Mountain no longer moved. His face was paler than the white cloaks of the Kingsguard, in fact, his entire body was, or what remained of it.
To be certain, Oberyn plunged the greatsword into the Mountain's chest and gouged out his heart on the sword's tip, throwing it towards those in the royal stand while he cut the head for himself. Raising it high above his own, Oberyn watched as Sansa and Ellaria ran towards him.
Sansa could not believe it when she saw her husband hold the Mountain's head aloft. It must have been an illusion. She also did not realize that she had been moving towards him when she and Ellaria collided with him, she was already crying tears of relief. Oberyn had held one hand to cup Ellaria's cheek and the other on her waist, while the Mountain's head remained forgotten for awhile.
How the crowd cheered for them despite he was openly kissing his two loves under the glorious afternoon sun. How he had marked them as theirs with his bloodied hands all over their bodies.
"The Gods have spoken," Tywin Lannister proclaimed. "By Prince Oberyn Martell's victory over Ser Gregor Clegane, Tyrion Lannister is now cleansed of all charges of regicide." The crowds cheered even louder. Oblivious to the fact that they were the ones who condemned him during his trial not a few days past.
Immediately, Tyrion's shackles were removed and he was free at last. The first thing he did was to march towards Oberyn and thank him profusely.
"I never doubted you for a moment," Tyrion told his savior. "It's a really good show though, quartering the Mountain before my sister's eyes."
Oberyn smiled. "I told you that I would win, didn't I?" he asked Tyrion. "I have my wife Sansa to thank," he added. "She had told me, quite literally to keep my head, so I merely took the Mountain's in exchange."
Sansa chuckled at his words and embraced him again. At that moment, her eyes spotted something. It was that telling glimmer of light again, the glimmer of light of the sun reflecting off the Gold Cloaks' armor. Something was wrong. Tywin Lannister and the rest of the lords were already gone, but Cersei Lannister was still there. The Gold Cloaks were still there.
No one else paid them any heed, and Oberyn and Ellaria had made to move back towards their pavilion with Tyrion for another round of drinks. This time, it would be wine that Tyrion would be happy to drink. Sansa looked back towards the royal stands and Cersei was still there.
She knew that look on Cersei's face. It only happened when Cersei thought that she was winning, that she had the upper hand. A gust of wind blew her loosely worn hair into her peripheral vision, and when she could see again, she saw that there were two crossbowmen ready to fire, one of them aiming at Tyrion and the other at Oberyn.
"Look out!" she shouted and moved Oberyn out of the way. He was the closest to her, so she reached for him and hoped for the best as she felt something enter her body.
"Sansa!" she heard him call her name. He had caught her in his arms, just before she collapsed.
"Cersei did this!" Tyrion exclaimed, pointing towards the stands. However, Cersei was already on the run once she realized that she had been discovered.
"I'll go after her," Brienne offered, but was stopped by Oberyn.
"No," he almost barked. "We need to get Sansa to safety. The Gods are kind, my wife is not in mortal danger. She needs proper medical attention, though."
"I'll go and fetch someone," Tyrion offered.
"Meet us in our chambers then," Oberyn returned and lifted Sansa as gently as possible.
"Oberyn..." he could hear her murmur his name.
"I am here, my love," he told her, kissing her temple for good measure. She was an incredible thing, he told himself and wondered why no one could ever see that in her. "You are safe now."
HAN: I decided to utilize a few overlapping viewpoints for this chapter. Yes, we're all happy that Oberyn survived. Did you all like that bit of gore that the Mountain had been put through?
Cersei is going to get it for sure. That was an idiotic move, but also very, very Cersei.
Don't worry about Sansa, she'll be fine.
Enjoy!