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“Obara?” Arianne found her cousin just outside the hall where she had spilled her wine to the stone floor rather than toast King Tommen just moments before. To Arianne’s shock, she saw that Obara had tears in her eyes.
“Leave me be.” Obara told her angrily, not looking at her.
“Obara…” Arianne put a hand gently on her shoulder, but Obara shrugged her off harshly.
"If my father were here he never would have drank to that toast either. Doran shouldn’t have… they shame him."
"You’re allowed to miss him." Arianne said quietly, but Obara turned her head away so that Arianne couldn’t see whether there were still tears in her eyes or not.
“You don’t have to be ashamed.” Arianne told her softly.
“Do you know what my father said when he came to claim me?”
“No.”
“My mother wept that day. My mother always wept. My father told me that the gods let us choose our weapons in life, and he showed me his spear, and he showed me my mother’s tears, and told me to make my choice. I choose the spear. I chose him. Tears are for the weak.”
“Obara, I don’t think he meant…” Arianne shook her head. “As a weapon you chose the spear, you chose to fight when you can. That doesn’t mean you can never have tears as well. Prince Oberyn cried, himself, many times. After Elia?”
“I never saw him shed a single tear.”
“Nor did I, but that doesn’t mean he never did. My father mentioned once how my uncle wept when they heard the news of Elia.”
Obara didn’t answer for a long moment. “I choose him. I choose fighting. And now he’s gone. All I have is my choice.”
“That is not all you have.” Arianne told her quietly. “You have me, and you have a whole family here for you. Everything Oberyn wanted you to have in life is not gone.”
“I have a desire for vengeance.” Obara answered. “That is what I have. Vengeance, and a spear to help me get it.”
“Vengeance does not have to exclude grief.”
“It does for me.” Obara turned and gave Arianne a last, fierce glare before she blinked the last of her tears away and disappeared into the feast again, leaving Arianne to stand alone, hoping that Obara’s refusal to feel anything other than anger in her own quest for vengeance wouldn't lead her to a similar fate as her father.