misereres (misereres) wrote in usurper, @ 2011-12-27 00:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! house martell, doran martell, oberyn martell |
oberyn & doran
who: oberyn & doran martell
where: sunspear
when: when oberyn arrives back in dorne
what: a clearing of the air; doran is as transparent as he gets
The affinity that the peoples of Dorne felt for their homeland -- a sympathy between soul and earth -- was multiplied tenfold in their ruling prince, but beyond even this was Doran Martell’s dedication to his family, those who bore the name Nymeros Martell (though they were scattered, though some might never return to the dappled light of Sunspear’s throne-room or the balmy evenings of the Water Gardens).
The threat that the dragons posed to his siblings played ever on his mind, but it was rage rather than fear that gripped Doran now, though his face betrayed nothing but deep thought. The rashness of his younger might have undone all -- the full extent of that rashness was yet unknown, but the short and vague letter sent by Elia after Oberyn quit the capital provided enough details to leave him with no doubt that they had quarrelled, that some crisis had only been narrowly averted.
Though his attention appeared occupied by state papers and petitions, this was more meditation than anything else: Doran was waiting for his brother.
There was none of the softness that had characterized his exit from King’s Landing -- stealing away with only Quentyn at his side as the sun rose from the horizon’s embrace -- when he rode into Sunspear. Rather than bleed out what anger he might have nurtured since being so gently dismissed, the journey had only propelled his fury, the pounding of hooves seemingly fanning the waves of his temper. It was anger directed at himself, at the punishment he had to shoulder in return for his mistake -- but it was anger nonetheless, manifest in the hard jangle of spurs as he made quick work of the winding halls and stairs of the Tower of the Sun.
In his road silks, dust caking his cheeks, a black scowl upon his face, it did not come as a surprise when the household guards took one beat of a moment longer to recognize the young prince of House Martell. But this did nothing to improve the famous temper, and only after a growl and a hissed promise of a flaying or three did Oberyn enter his brother’s study.
The sight of his brother (hissing like a snake, not unexpectedly) was both welcome and unwelcome; setting the parchment in his hands down upon the table, Doran raised heavy brows as he gave Oberyn the full weight of his gaze.
‘Sit.” The command was curt, the slightest touch of his anger bleeding over into the single syllable (this day the mere sight of his youngest brother was enough to cause that small, revealing weakness). “Your sister sends a tear-stained note that speaks volumes but shares little fact, and from you I receive silence. Explain yourself.”
Elia wished for him to breathe, and so he did, a long pull of air into his chest as he poured himself a cup of water. Dornish air, hot and dry, free from the lingering stench of fire and the sickly sweetness of the Targaryen court. Home.
-- home, however, did not come without a price. Sit. Explain. Obey. That first, at least, he could do, sprawled back in a chair, one hand running a length of scarlet silk through the fingers of the other as he studied his older brother in silence.
Then: “Your letter came too late.”
Doran noted the partial relaxation of his brother (the relief that was not conscious expression, went bone-deep), and the ways in which he did not ease -- the tensions still held, anger still carried. Behind that one sentence lay rage; Doran knew this because it was kin to his own, different in form but from the same source.
“As you are -- remarkably -- still alive, I presume you rectified that situation.” Behind the statement, questions: And told our sister, in guilt? Or failed and revealed your hand?
A twitch that was not a smile moved the corner of his mouth. “You presume correctly. You would be receiving a skull stripped of skin to place on your mantel, or -- more likely -- a jar of ash had I not.” Pausing for a drink of that water, when he continued, his voice had only partially lost the raw rub of dryness and sand. “I coated that book of prophecies that he cherished so much in...” And now the smile widened into something more recognizable, though his eyes remained untouched by it. “Well. It would have dissolved everything. I threw it into the fire. And the little dragon told Elia.”
Not for the first time, Doran cursed the veiled bride viewing that had brought the dragon prince to Dorne, and cursed twice his sister’s lost heart -- the months and years ahead could have been so much simpler had it not belonged (in part) to the dragon, for though Doran demanded caution and patience his intentions towards the man who had so shamed his sister were far from brotherly.
As for his younger sibling: “You are deranged, child.” The heat of the desert was in his words. “More dangerous to her than the dragon in her bed, and more trouble to me than the prince and his scab-father together.”
Oberyn’s answer to this was to drink what remained of the water, before pitching the beaten metal cup at Doran’s desk and Doran’s paperwork, not a muscle moved save for those of his arm and wrist and lips as his smile widened at the sight of droplets spattering across parchment. Doran knew this anger. Doran would know how to smooth its more volatile sparks in ways that Elia, Quentyn, or a hard ride into Dorne did not.
“I concede the latter, Prince Doran.”
“You will concede both.” The ringing of the metal as it hit the marble floor was ignored, the water across the affairs of state laid out across his table spared only half a glance as Doran stood, quite still as he looked down at his brother, his brother’s anger. “Whilst she is with child the dragon can only break her heart, after all; four moons of grace, five? You can break far more.”
“You would have broken the realm, Prince Oberyn, and might yet. Dangerous indeed. I hope you kissed the dragon prince’s feet in thanks.”
The realm is already broken and we are not the solution that Rhaegar seeks. “I kissed Elia’s,” he said, tone going flat. Doran’s rise from his seat was followed with a slowly blinking gaze, his dark eyes flinty and unreadable in the face of his brother’s stillness. The silk was wound around his fingers.
“I would raise spears in case she is shamed by him again.”
Doran stood stony before making a spare gesture towards the smaller table by the window, upon which (beside a shallow silver dish of candied orange peel) sat a much-folded piece of parchment. “And how well that went.”
Equal attention was then given to his brother’s face and his brother’s hands, the clever fingers wrapped tight by scarlet silk. The obvious responses to his statement -- the truth that news of a standing force so hurriedly put together could not be kept from the Spider for long, the ease with which Aerys might kill the Martells within his court if said force did march, the brave idiocy of such a plan in a game which required the greatest subtlety and patience -- were left unsaid.
Instead, deceptively mild: “You would have it be all or nothing, then. Tell me, Oberyn, how long would she survive as Rhaenys’ regent? In days or weeks, as you like.”
Oberyn’s eyes narrowed, rage betrayed in the points of colour high upon his cheeks. Rage that was almost, almost belied by his tone of voice, which was comparable, in this moment, to Doran’s (save for the curl of lip at the second word). “Passive worm.” The Prince, damn him, was right -- Oberyn did not need his brother’s gift of foresight to know this about their sister’s potential fate -- and the repercussions of his mistake sent a chill seeping down the length of his spine. “Tell me, then, of your long game.”
Doran knew -- half experience and half intuition -- that he would have to move beyond calm control for his brother’s catharsis; a true collision was required. But when he replied it was still as Prince, his tone measured as before and his hand settling heavy upon Oberyn’s shoulder as he moved to stand behind him.
“The taint in their prince’s blood will out, that much is clear. What is required now is time, and space in which to work.” There had been a time when the thought of kin upon the Iron Throne, children as much of Dorne as of Valyria, had been a cause for joy, but now -- “They will be brought home, Oberyn. All.”
“You--” Frustration was evident in the wrinkle of his brow. Oberyn, with a hard bunch of muscle, shook his brother’ hand away, as though afraid that through the power of touch, Doran’s cowardly passivity could be transmitted to him. Doing nothing was anathema to him, and when Doran offered statements such as the ones he had just uttered, the words rang empty.
“You speak in abstractions. What do you actually mean?”
The hand returned to place, grip harder now -- not a warning, but almost a reply in itself. “And what will you do then, rash prince? Will you trust? You have given no indication that my plans will be advanced as I would have them by sharing them with you.”
“Did it ever occur to you--” Oberyn cut himself off with what sounded like a hiss. Did it ever occur to you that I might agree to your plans, if only I could see them? For Doran made his plans within plans, and Oberyn was not so skilled as he in this sort of delicate play. And yet Doran, for all of his apparent wisdom, refused to see that he was blind in this arena. Give me direction and perhaps I shall follow.
He shook out his shoulder once more. “Let me go.”
The clout, when it came, was surprisingly strong (for though he preferred calm and measured ways, the Prince of Dorne was by no means a weak man) and pitched to knock Oberyn from his seat onto the floor. When Doran spoke his words were coloured with far more anger than before, but there was a blunt honesty to there too, which had been lacking: “Speak your mind, or else why are you here?”
Surprisingly strong -- though Oberyn ought not to have been surprised at all, as the scanty instances where he’d been on the receiving end of the physical manifestation of his brother’s anger were all highlighted in his memory as having possessed the sort of strength that perfectly matched the inherent power of Sunspear’s own throne.
And so he was not surprised to find himself sprawled on the floor, pain thudding beneath his scalp.
“You know my mind.” A beat between his words as he gathered his limbs to him, legs tucked beneath his weight and eyes then uplifted to briefly study Doran. “I want to see my daughters.”
“You need not ask. They are at the Gardens, wreaking havoc.” For all that anger remained in Doran’s voice, it was tempered by a gentleness now -- that the two could sit comfortably side by side was something that he had learnt long ago, though he was still unsure whether it was the mark of a ruler, of a brother a decade older than his siblings, or some combination of the two.
Sitting upon the edge of the chair, Doran looked away from his brother towards the window. Almost idly, he asked, “Did you take the Boneway or the Prince’s Pass, Oberyn?”
“The eternal inquisitor.” And like his brother, Oberyn’s voice now contained something other than pure anger -- amusement, dry and sharp, but amusement nonetheless. He reached across for his discarded cup, sliding the corner of his silk into the water the remained, then bringing it up to his face to wipe away some of the dust. “Why do you ask?”
“Of course.” A small smile, or something approaching one, transformed Doran’s face -- a younger man, then, and for a moment almost unguarded. “I ask to test your skills of observation, given your passing familiarity with Dorne -- was your path of choice not guarded, as my Arianne loves to say, marvellous well?” Not obvious guards, liveried to Martell or the borderland houses, but stealthy men and women of the mountains (in far greater numbers than even two moons before).
A quizzical furrow of his brow. “Was it?” Oberyn’s hand stilled in its ministrations, the scarf allowed to hang damp across his nape as he cast his thoughts back to his rushed journey. “I was rather blinded by rage, brother. I saw nothing of note along the Boneway -- which is the route I took. It seemed more appropriate.”
“It was. They saw you -- and your blinding rage. But I confess, I am glad that you missed them; it bodes well.” Though Doran ever left the point for others to find, if they had the wits (a teacher, in his own way, was the eldest Martell child), he continued speaking as he walked back to his desk, filling two small goblets with wine of the deepest red. “This is the last stillness before the storm, Oberyn. You know what we do in storms.” We return to the land, in which we trust, and live for another day.
More of that amusement evident in his tone now: “I am thrilled to have helped you prove a point.” This, then, was yet another example of Oberyn’s inability to clearly visualize the plans his brother so carefully designed. With a shake of his head and the beginnings of a rueful smile, Oberyn rocked up to his feet.
The last stillness before the storm. The words rang true. “We return to the land,” he said, then extended his hand. A beat with his fingers. “Pass one over.”
As requested, Doran leant over, pressing one of the two into his brother’s hand and nodding at the truth from Oberyn’s lips which mirrored his own thoughts. “Lewyn knows it. Even Elia does -- in her head and her heart of hearts, if not the space in between.” A beat. “I care for four souls beyond our border, Oberyn.”
The implication behind his words was clear: when they are within, that border will close.
The younger man’s smile developed an edge. “You don’t fear that that is where they will always be? Beyond?” The wine gleamed dark and red as it caught refracted shards of sunlight, but Oberyn did not rush to drink it, preferring to swirl it around in the goblet with languid twists of his wrist. “I told Elia, after the mishap -- I told her I would take her out if she wished it. She did not. And now...”
He set the goblet down. “Nymeria’s blood will flow in the veins of our future monarchs. We’re never getting them back.”
“Nymeria’s blood flows in the veins of Elia’s children.” A minor correction, but a vital one. A moment passed before Doran turned back to his brother and continued. “Had she left with you then, Dorne would have bled; the dragons may well have claimed her back and taken her ever out of reach. You know how they feel about their possessions.
“As I said before, Oberyn, they will be brought home. It is in our interest to keep the peace; it will not be easy, what I intend, and time is the most precious commodity.” Time enough to prepare in all ways, and then time for those in King’s Landing to return (swift as arrows) once the trap was sprung.
Doran raised his goblet, keeping his eyes locked on the other man’s, almost a toast. “Let the North look to the North; we shall see to ourselves.” Dorne was not meant to be yoked to the dragons forever.