Chapter Text
296 AC - THE VAITH
When they pulled me out of the river, I was mostly dead. Limp, water-logged, and pallid, not breathing. I was covered in silt and weeds, and when they laid me on the sandy shore of the Vaith, my cousin Tyene began to weep, or so she told me later. But my uncle was there too, and he had seen drowned men before.
He turned me over and pounded my back until water began to seep from my mouth and nose, then gave me breaths and compressed my chest until I spluttered back to life. Lying on the banks of the River Vaith, I breathed again, black eyes wide open in shock, staring at what seemed like an endless hazy blue sky overhead. My uncle exhaled in relief, sitting back on his haunches. My cousin choked back her sobs and embraced me, heedless of the water and mud dirtying her spotless white robes.
I was alive. It was a miracle. I'd been in the river for far too long, after being thrown from my horse while fleeing my uncle, the very man who had just saved my life. But I didn't remember any of that. Not hitting the water with a shriek, not sinking under its murky depths, not being pulled downstream by the deceptive current. I didn't remember why I'd run from my uncle, or why I'd been here, along the Vaith, in the first place.
Truth be told, I couldn't even remember my name. The panic this induced in me was all-consuming. What little I did remember of a life was not this life. These people were strangers to me. This land was a stranger to me. My own body did not align with what I seemed to recall. When I looked at myself in the mirror- olive brown skin, wide dark eyes, long black hair, wide hips, heavy breasts, a soft, round face- little of it seemed familiar to me. My own nervous smile alarmed me. Who was this woman, draped in finery once more? The name they called me, Arianne, couldn't possibly be my own.
But I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. To admit I was an amnesiac would make it real. Tyene and my uncle- Oberyn- quickly picked up on my fear and confusion, but they seemed to take it as evidence that I was traumatized from my near death experience and possibly ashamed of the events leading up to it.
We spent the night at the nearby Castle Vaith. My only prior experience with castles was that of tour groups being shepherded along by world-weary guides, so to enter a living, breathing castle was different. I gawked at the servants in worn clothing, the animals in the yard, the constant smell of dung and urine and wet straw.
I was nearly mute when introduced to Lord Daeron Vaith, a tall, slender man with pale brown skin and pale brown hair and pale brown eyes, like a washed out version of another man- even his voice was soft and whispery. His wife, Lady Clemence, was his opposite- short, plump, darker, and lively.
"Thank the gods you did not drown in our river!" she chirped. "Imagine that sort of bad luck, Princess! One would think your ghost might haunt us!"
As she chuckled, I tried to suppress any reaction at all to the news that I was a princess- yet, somehow, it wasn't such a shock. In a world that clearly operated by horse and sword and castles, there had to be princesses. I supposed I should be happy that I was one of them, and not some homeless orphan who no one would have bothered to fish out of the river.
Still, princesses were expected to be demure and fragile, and on that basis alone, I made it to the relative privacy of my guest chamber with Tyene without anyone demanding much from me beyond smiling and nodding.
"Oh, Arianne," Tyene sighed. I'd realized by now that we were cousins- she addressed Oberyn as 'Father' and seemed to revel in being his darling daughter, with an oddly petulant, girlish air for someone who had to be around my age, so perhaps nineteen or twenty. Yet we looked nothing alike.
I could see a little of myself in Oberyn- he had the same hair and eyes as me, though his nose was bigger and more hooked, his skin slightly paler, his frame much leaner. Tyene was all peaches and cream. There was a golden tan to her fair skin that matched her golden blonde hair perfectly, and her eyes were big and blue and innocent. She was as short as me and small all over, with tiny hands and feet, like a little doll. Yet there was something unnerving about her mannerisms- it was almost like she put on a performance in public, and now that we were in private, she could take off her mask.
"I thought I'd gotten you killed, fleeing from Father," she laughed. Even her laugh was high and tinkling. It creeped me out. "I didn't expect you to go for a swim!"
I couldn't manage a laugh in response. Tyene noted my humorless expression, and for the first time, seemed genuinely sorry. "Do you blame me? I suppose I did egg you on, to come west with me… I thought your father might just wash his hands of us and let us go, once he realized we'd gone. It's not as if we broke any laws! How was I to know he'd send Father after us? Really, I don't know why he's taken this so seriously. Even Father would not hear me out. He's being dreadfully boring," she pouted.
"I don't even know why we came here," I said darkly, but Tyene took it as exasperation, not genuine confusion.
"Well," she said. "Perhaps it's for the best. Though I would have liked to see the Reach again, of course. We could have visited my mother in Oldtown, before we met your Tyrell. Still, mayhaps you wouldn't have been pleased by him, cousin. They say he still has his good looks, but he is a cripple, poor dear." She blew out another sigh, disturbing a lock of hair from her brow. "Oh well. Luckily, after your dip in the Vaith, Father is too worried to reprimand us. I'm sure he's just relieved we won't be bringing your body back to Uncle Doran."
I stared at her blankly. Again, Tyene seemed to interpret this as quiet anger, even disgust at the mention of my father.
"He does care for you, Arianne," she said, softly. "I'm sure of that. All fathers love their daughters. In their own way. It's just he's weak, your father, and he's intimidated by you- your beauty, your passion- He's a tired old man. He has been ever since your mother left. But soon his time will be done and dusted, and your time will come, cousin, I know it!" She reached over and squeezed my hand reassuringly. "We might as well get some sleep. The sun is already setting, and I'm exhausted. I'm too tired to even think about dinner."
I murmured my goodnights and I waited until I was sure Tyene was asleep, snoring softly in her satin-lined bed. She looked like the true princess, I thought, like Sleeping Beauty. My stomach growled. Tyene had a tiny waist, to match the rest of her, and looked like she subsisted off air and honey. I needed food. I pulled on a silk dressing gown and wandered out of the room. The temperature had dropped in this desert climate now that night had fallen, and I shivered towards the only source of warmth I could feel through the castle walls- the kitchens.
The servants there looked surprised to see me, but my uncle Oberyn, who was fondling a woman and eating some bread and cheese, did not. He desisted in his fondling when he noticed me, and broke into a chagrined smile.
"There you are. Hungry?"
I nodded. A bowl of soup was rustled up for me. He offered me some of his bread. I shoved it in my mouth.
"I'm glad to see you still have your appetite," he said, watching me inhale the bread. "You frightened me today, niece. When you opened your eyes on the riverbank, you looked like you'd shaken hands with the Stranger."
I swallowed the bread and started ladling soup into my mouth.
"I won't bore you with lectures," Oberyn said. "I leave that sort of thing to your father. But you humiliated him by running off like this, Arianne. The Prince of Dorne cannot be seen to be outfoxed by his own daughter. And this business with Willas Tyrell- he is a good man, Willas, despite the bad leg. Clever and thoughtful, and still a fiend for horses and hawks, though he can scarcely walk. But he is not a fit match for you. Arianne, he is his father's heir."
He pointed at me with his bread knife. "Someday he will be Lord Tyrell. I do not judge Willas as a Reacherman, but our people would. They would never consent to be ruled by a Tyrell, and he is not Rhoynar, he is Andal through and through. Do you really think he would be comfortable submitting to a wife's reign? He was raised to give orders and see them obeyed, as were you. You need a sweet, biddable lad who does not mind playing second fiddle."
He snorted, and then said, "And you need a sweet, biddable lad who knows his way around a lance and spear. A boy who can defend your rights and protect you. You are not a warrior like my girls, Ari. Nor is Willas, not anymore. It would shame him to come here and see your other suitors parading around, swords in hand, strutting like peacocks."
I paused in drinking my soup, and said, "Will my father punish me for this?"
Oberyn gave me a wry look, and said, "I would hope that when he hears that you nearly drowned in the Vaith, he'll view that as punishment enough, Arianne. But you must try to hear him out. I know he- I know he can be distant, and I know he does not like to explain his reasoning to you, but he would never force you to wed against your will. You have no idea how fortunate you are. Most men would never let their daughters choose a husband."
"He doesn't intend to let me choose Willas Tyrell," I pointed out.
"Willas' own father wouldn't let you choose Willas, trust me," Oberyn scoffed. "And I've no desire to lay eyes on Mace Tyrell anytime soon, the fat fuck. Him and his withered cunt of a mother- believe me, Arianne, that is not a family you want to marry into. They would have no love for you, nor you for them."
"Besides," he said, as I returned to my soup with a vengeance, "You are only twenty, niece. There is no need to rush into marriage. Look at my own girls. Not one of them wed- and some of them I doubt ever will. Tyene likes men the way she likes to toy with butterflies. Tearing their wings off, one by one," he laughed, sounding proud, rather than horrified. "But I wouldn't go listening to her advice on all counts. She pushes you to do things she would never dare do alone. She envies you."
"Why?" I asked around the spoon.
Oberyn looked at me in bemusement. "Because someday all of this will belong to you, and you will have the power to do whatever you please, whenever you please. I do not know if I would trust Tyene with such a high seat. She is a dear, sweet girl, but… rather venomous, like her papa, don't you think?" He winked at me, ruffled my hair, which was still damp, and left me to my late-night snack.
We departed bright and early the next morning, by riverboat, heading east, back towards Sunspear, where my father ruled as Prince of Dorne. On the windy deck of the ship, I learned that it would have taken us a fortnight to return home on horseback, but it was half that by ship, and so I had a week of a cramped cabin and endless, blazing hot days on the river to look forward to. I saw herons and crocodiles and men fishing and children swimming. I saw dolphins leaping up to greet the delighted travelers calling out to them.
The Vaith became the Greenblood, as green as its name, and I saw farms and orchards pass by. The air smelled like ripe lemons and oranges and limes. On cheerfully painted boats orphans waved at us- not orphans in the literal sense, I soon learned, but the Orphans of Mother Rhoyne, the descendants, like me, of the Rhoynar, who had come here fleeing the utter destruction of their people at the hands of Valyrian slavers and dragonriders.
While my ancestors had married into pale Andals and taken on many of their surnames, the Orphans stayed utterly loyal to Mother Rhoyne, and they spoke a foreign language, too fast for me to even hope of even picking out individual words. They spoke Rhoynish. Once, my ancestors had too, until they disavowed it. One people, they said. One people, one language, one Faith.
But the Orphans didn't listen. They worshipped Mother Rhoyne and they refused to anoint their children in the holy oils of the Faith. They prayed on the decks of the ships, faces turned towards the sun, not in septs. But they didn't seem to hold it against me- "Princess!" they called out, whenever they saw me, and held up their children for me to wave or blow kisses to them.
All of this I heard- about the Greenblood and its Orphans, the Valyrians and dragons- from other travelers speaking casually on the riverboat. I kept quiet and I learned a lot. I knew that my father was Doran, my mother Mellario, that she had abandoned him and me six years ago, returned to her native Norvos, a cold northern place across the sea.
I knew my brothers were Quentyn and Trystane, that my father favored Quentyn and had given him an honorable fostering with House Yronwood, that I had not seen Quentyn in years. I knew my uncle Oberyn had a lover, a bastard woman called Ellaria, and many daughters by her, many more daughters not by her. I knew that Tyene's mother was a septa, a woman of the cloth, who called Oberyn a demon sent from the Seven Hells to tempt her faith.
I knew that my father and I were not on good terms. When people spoke of him to me, they looked at me awkwardly, with pity. His favoritism could not be more apparent. Under Dornish law, I was his heir, but it seemed he did not treat me as such. Most would expect me to be married by now, with children of my own. That I did not- and that my father had apparently only suggested men thrice my age as potential husbands- seemed to indicate that he disdained me, that he didn't truly want me to wed, that he feared I could not be easily passed over once I'd given him grandchildren.
I wondered why he disliked me. Was I a terrible daughter? Had my rebellious ways caused him to distrust and resent me, or had his apathy towards me caused me to rebel? Oberyn said I looked like my mother. Did Doran see her in me? Was he trying to punish her by punishing me? Why had she left him? Had he been a poor husband? Did he mistreat her? Did he mistreat me? Had I actually expected to make it all the way to the Reach and elope with Willas Tyrell? How well did I even know that man? I'd never even seen him before.
It was evening when we returned to Sunspear. I expected some grand city, but Sunspear was only a large town. It lived and breathed in the long shadow of the fortress itself, the Old Palace that had been built around the Sandship, the original castle of House Martell.
Sunspear had very high walls, and awnings and banners blotted out the blue sky overhead, offering plenty of shade for thirsty, exhausted travelers. Crowds gathered to gawk as I rode by on a white mare, behind my uncle on his menacing black sandsteed, and my cousin beside me on a dappled grey filly. People looked at me expectantly, some almost mockingly, and I had the feeling of being a prisoner paraded around before a trial. Rumors must have spread about my flight to Vaith, about my plans to run off with a Tyrell, an enemy. No one jeered or threw anything, but the atmosphere was not exactly welcoming.
"Ignore them, this will pass," Tyene murmured to me as we rode towards the fortress, up a winding cobbled street. "They'll forget it as soon as the next feast day, you'll see. All you have to do is smile and flutter your eyelashes, and they'll forgive you at once, cousin."
But I didn't want to smile and flutter my eyelashes. I wanted to go home, not to some dusty old fortress with a man who didn't like me or even want me to succeed him. Not that I cared about being Princess of Dorne, a country I knew next to nothing about, but it would have been nice, if I were flung into a new life, if this was some kind of fucked-up reincarnation, to at least wind up with a happy family. What was the saying? Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way?
We reached the gates of the Old Palace; I braced myself as they swung open.