A loud crash roused him from his sleep. He grunted, turned around, and pressed himself tightly against Ellaria. Of all the nights for a servant to drop something in the vicinity of his rooms, it simply had to be the one before he finally got his revenge.

Another crash, then the sound of something heavy tumbling to the ground.

"What was that?" Ellaria asked, voice still heavy from sleep.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. "I'll look into it. Go back to sleep, my love."

Slipping into his boots and a light vest, he stepped out into the cool night air. Nothing seemed amiss on the balcony wrapped around the courtyard, so the sound had to have come from one of the adjoining rooms.

Elia's door was closed, and perhaps she was already asleep at this time. It was unlikely, yet just before he was about to knock on his daughter's door, he saw another one standing far open.

Elle.

Her room looked as if there had been a fight - overturned cupboard, torn pillow, glass shards littering the floor. No blood, but also no sign of her. Thankfully, the panic at this image was quickly subdued as he spotted her mere moments later.

She sat by the fountain, hands gripping the edge, staring into the water.

He consciously made a bit of noise as he approached her, to alert her of his presence, before he sat down beside her. Her gaze did not move.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, listening to the soft pattering of the fountain, and the wind wafting through the trees and flowers and bushes around them. No sounds from outside their manse broke through the high walls.

"Twenty-four." Elle's voice hardly rose above the falling water before them. "I have killed twenty-four people." Her knuckles had turned white, her nails fruitlessly trying to bury themselves into the stone beneath. "I didn't even feel bad about it. In the moment all I could think about was how much I enjoyed it."

He could not see her face, yet the terror and agony in her voice painted a clear picture of what it might look like.

"Such a thing is known to happen," he said softly. "Killing awakens something primal in us, it gives us power over life itself. And if we're not careful, we can get addicted to that feeling."

"But I don't want to be like that. I just want to be normal."

"This is the most normal thing in the world, sunshine. To fall victim to human urges."

She did not respond, did not move. His gaze wandered upwards, yet the moon he had expected to shine at its fullest was merely a thin crescent.

Then why did Elle have such nightmares? The wrecking of her room was nothing new, such a thing had occurred in Sunspear before - not so often it would arouse attention, but often enough that he now knew how to deal with it - but only ever during a full moon.

"Would you like to talk about the people you've killed? I have found sharing burdens alleviates them, at least in part."

She painted small figures on the water's surface for a while. Then she spoke again, her voice still low and broken.

"I don't know their names, I don't even remember their faces. It all happened so quickly. I had just pulled Robb Stark behind a table and then a man appeared and he had a sword, I just acted on what you taught me - I swept him off his legs and then I plunged my dagger in his throat and I-" Her breathing quickened. "There was so much blood, blood on him and the floor and my hands- They are still covered in red, it has seeped into me and I'll never get it out-"

He shushed her, stopping her from falling into a panic she'd never return from.

Gently, he shifted forward until he was able to take her cold hands in his and press them underwater, where he rubbed across her fingers and knuckles, her palms and all the way to her wrists and beyond. Then he lifted them into the moonlight, holding them up before her eyes that had not moved this entire time.

"Here, do you see? Now they're all clean. No blood, besides the one that belongs to you and that is flowing deep under your skin."

Her fingers trembled even as they tightened around his.

"We cannot change the past, such is the terrifying curse the gods have put upon us. But we also cannot simply let ourselves get crushed under the weight of the present. We have to look ahead, towards the future, because that is the one thing we can influence, the only thing still left unwritten."

Tears flowed from her eyes as she curled up against him, head in his lap and arms tight around her body. She looked so young and vulnerable in that position, attempting to make him forget all the years they had lost. He carefully stroked her hair.

"What you said just now, about Robb Stark…" An inkling of an idea was already forming in his mind, as to the circumstances she could have possibly met him under, as well as suffered such lasting wounds. "Would you like to talk about that as well?"

Elle stayed silent, the heavy breathing and trembling of her body acting as the only indication she had registered what he had said.

"I… I don't know," she whispered. "We did not part on good terms."

"I assume you did not meet on good terms either."

Ever so slightly, she shook her head. "He took me captive, dragged me with him to the Twins. His mother found out who I am, and I had to swear to protect him, otherwise she would tell him my real name."

The Twins.

Doran's spies had delivered word of what had gone down at the castle, the brutality and cruelty shown by its keepers and allies alike, the horror that had ended a rebellion. To now find out that Elle might have-

"You were there that night?" He rarely lost control of his voice, yet the mere thought that his daughter had to witness this terror was enough to make it sway.

It put her previous statement, of having killed twenty-four people, into proper perspective. Of course Elle, who had previously never even managed to harm a spider, had to have been forced into such a drastic measure, had to have seen no other way out but to cut herself free, no matter the cost.

Twenty-four, in one night.

He bent down towards her, despite the awkward angle, and pressed a kiss to her head as he hugged her closer to himself. She never answered his question, only accepted his embrace the way she so rarely did.

Eventually, once he had sufficiently worked through that particular revelation, he rightened himself up again, and desperately tried to find something more light-hearted to talk about.

"You were in the Riverlands, then? How did you like it?"

Elle took her time to answer. "Have you heard of the Golden Paladin?"

"Of course. Her songs are quite popular in Dorne."

"That was me."

He furrowed his brows. "You are the Golden Paladin? The hero of the Riverlands?"

"Was. Those days are long behind me."

It made sense, of course. Elle had always fought heavily against any and all injustices she encountered, ever since she had been little. Whether she was reacting to stories or things happening right before her eyes, the mere implication someone was not being treated right sent her into a furious frenzy. She believed in the good in the world, despite what had happened to her. Or perhaps because of it.

The Golden Paladin… When he had first heard about her he had assumed her to be a singer's creation, a way to say fuck you to House Lannister and give the smallfolk some hope. To now find out this figure was not only real but also his own daughter was certainly unexpected.

"Is it true you were knighted?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Elia will be quite jealous."

"I tried to stop it, but Helena wouldn't listen. Her father didn't even like me much, at least I think so, yet he loved his daughter too much to deny her a wish."

"Helena?"

"Lady Helena Terrick, she had been kidnapped by Lannister soldiers and I saved her." A small smile spread on her face. "She was the one who told me about the legend I had become. I sometimes wonder if it was truly me she liked or my title."

He wouldn't be surprised if this Lady Helena had been more than a simple part of the Golden Paladin's story. Elle, despite not being his natural daughter, was more like him than many assumed at first glance, and that included their affection for both men and women alike. He was glad she had grown up in Dorne, where he had been able to teach her that such feelings were nothing evil, and that she was free to love whomever she liked.

"I sometimes… I wish I could go back to her. But then I remember what my family did to her, attempted to do to her, and were she to find out my name, I fear she would hate me."

"There is only one way to find out," he said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, before he spoke again. "If you are real, then does that mean everything you did was as well?"

"Not everything, singers are known to exaggerate. And I am also only one person travelling around the entirety of the Riverlands, even if I wanted to I would not have been able to achieve everything they ascribed to me. But most of the songs have a kernel of truth."

"Let me see what I remember… What about the treasuries or the thing at High Heart?"

She nodded.

"Or how you burned down a farm to save horses being held captive?"

"I did not burn it down, I only freed the horses and ran away afterwards." She paused, seemingly considering something. "Did you see the horse I brought with me? She is from that farm."

He did remember the mare - she was hard to miss with her silvery-white hide. "Does your horse have a name?"

"Starlight."

"And was Benjiamin Vypren also a singer's exaggeration?"

He had tried to let his voice sound cheeky, as if talking about a small joke only they knew of, yet something about the way Elle's fingers tightened in the fabric on her stomach and she curled even tighter into herself made him realise he had made a mistake.

"No," she said with almost steadfast certainty. "He was very real."

The Golden Paladin and the Butcher of Sallydance. Of course Elle, who had become the very epitome of hope and goodness, did not think fondly of this man who had laid so much waste and destruction upon what she surely considered to be her lands.

"Would you like to talk about him?"

"I will never take this man's name in my mouth again. Doing so would only give him and his memory power, and the sooner his rotting corpse is forgotten, the better."

So the Golden Paladin had been victorious over her greatest adversary once more, if she talked about his corpse.

He knew he shouldn't prod, yet as he stroked her hair, pulling it back from her face, he could not restrain himself.

"Did he give you those scars?"

"No, he would never-" She paused. "It was an animal attack. I tried to free it from its pain, and got wounded in the process. That ought to teach me a lesson."

An easier topic, an easier topic.

"Was this Helena Terrick the only special person you met on your travels?" he finally asked.

"I don't know if I want to talk about this with my father."

He didn't know whether it was an accident, that she had called him her father even when no one else was around, when they did not have to pretend anymore that all was right between them.

"As your father, it is my duty to know about these things, because I am the one who has to determine who is worthy of my child."

"Perhaps you should try at finding me a suitor again, because I don't seem to be having any luck."

"How so?"

She hesitated a few moments, her fingers tapping on the mosaic tiles beside her head.

"I… I have met a few people," she finally says. "But it never ended well. They despised me because I tried to help the right people, or the wrong people. If I had stayed with some, I would have never been able to leave, and if I had stayed with others, I would have destroyed myself."

"Sounds like you have even more experience than me already."

"There weren't that many," she said appalled.

"And you are certain none of them moved your heart? So many years away, there has to be at least one that rises above the rest."

She is quiet once more, reaching out her hand to let her fingers play with the fountain's water, then carefully whispers. "There… There might have been one."

"Tell me about them."

It takes her a while to respond.

"His name was Jon." She speaks the name as if it were sacred. "He did not know who I was, neither Paladin nor princess, and yet he wanted me anyways. The night we parted, I looked into his eyes, and all I saw was the kind of devotion I had only ever read about in tales and legends - an eternal love that could shatter worlds and birth stars."

Her voice was laced in agony and longing alike, and he could swear he even saw a tear roll down her cheek.

"Why did you leave?"

She hesitates before she says, "He was a brother of the Night's Watch. Had I stayed, I would have killed us both."

How terribly mundane such a choice seemed against what she has faced since. The great love of her live, taken from her because of a vow of celibacy.

[xyz]

"I don't want you to fight tomorrow," she said.

He chuckled. "You needn't worry. The Mountain stands no chance against me."

"How can you be so sure? I don't want to lose you, not again."

"And you won't." He urged her up, out of her curled-up position, and laid his hands on the sides of her face. "Everything will be alright. You'll see." Then he stood up. "Come. We both need to get some sleep."

Elle stared down into the water again, making no motion to follow him back to her room. He decided to let her stay by the fountain - it clearly calmed her, and he trusted her enough to let her decide about her own life.

She raised her voice again after he had taken a few steps away.

"She did not even recognise me." He looked back towards her. "She looked into my eyes, and turned away."

Why exactly he had decided to flaunt Elle before her mother and grandfather he had not been quite sure, yet he had never expected neither of them to remain ignorant to the reality of the situation.

Elle had never taken off her mother's necklace, and he assumed she wore it right this moment, so having the person she longed for most turn their back on her must not have been easy.

"After I have my justice," he said, "we'll return to Sunspear."

a/n: next week we'll get into the trial against the mountain

stay tuned :)