misereres (misereres) wrote in usurper, @ 2012-02-12 22:23:00 |
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Evening touched King’s Landing in hues of pink and gold as Oberyn rode into the city. If his exit had been painted in haste and executed in silence, then this return was by no means triumphant, yet his arrival, accompanied as he was with a retinue that was notably larger than that with which he’d left, was overdue. There was Quentyn, of course, suddenly broad-shouldered and tall, and members of various Dornish Houses whose official presence in King Aerys’ court would be formally recognized on the morrow, for this night was for settling in -- or, in Oberyn’s case, hoping to catch his sister in private, a luxury most rare for a future queen of Westeros.
The letter written in her own hand and addressed -- finally -- to him, having been delivered just over a full moon ago, had gone unreplied and unacknowledged, which, after the long weeks of separation and non-communication, had been an exercise in soothing battered pride, indulging in one last bit of petty cruelty, and even, perhaps, patience. But finally he could take it no more -- Elia had summoned him back, Elia had forgiven him, Elia called. He could do nothing but answer, in person if not by hand.
Abandoning Quentyn to see to the comforts of their countrymen, Oberyn had a servant settle him in Elia’s private solar. Whether the court was in the throes of yet another feverish feast, he did not know or care beyond that which kept his sister from being fetched to him before too long. He paced the room in slow circles, easing the strain of the saddle from his legs, spurs jingling with every step in merry unison with the links of his belt as he wiped the dust of the road from his cheeks.
A whispered word from her handmaiden (one of those that she kept close, a loyal ally from childhood) alerted Elia to Oberyn’s arrival; she excused herself from the festivities of a full court supper with grace, withdrawing to her private quarters at a measured pace only because of the eyes that were everywhere. The crown princess of the realm could not pelt down corridors as a young princess of Dorne might, and certainly not when with child.
Upon opening the door to her solar there was no hesitation to her -- closing it with a kick of her ankle, she took the last steps towards her brother and wrapped her arms around him with no mind to the dust of the road or the state of his clothes. For a brief moment, none of what had passed between the two of them mattered.
“I have never been so happy to see your face.”
With others -- with Ellaria, even -- he could practice open bitterness, but with Elia, whose presence was much needed and much missed, what inclination to throw her punishment back in her face that he might have nurtured dissipated quite entirely as soon as he perceived her voice. In that instant, an open grin lighted upon his face, for it was just them, the younger Martell children, arm-in-arm again.
Not trusting himself to speak just yet, her words were met with a kiss -- one for each cheek, a third for her brow -- as he settled his hands on her shoulders. Then, a step back to give her an assessing look-over.
“I’ve disturbed your supper.” No hint of an apology in his voice.
His assessment was matched by her own; many of the signs that she looked for were doubtless different to those he did, but no less important. Emotion carried in the eyes, the set of his shoulders, the past weeks written on his appearance.
“A tedious affair, and I do not much like boar. I think I will allow it.” There was a smile in her voice, light response covering a deeper truth: to have you back, brother, I would allow anything. “Are you hungry, thirsty?”
Her smile written on her face, then, she turned to settle herself upon the pillows piled in the corner closest to the doors that led out to a small terrace (her receiving room was decorated in the finest style that King’s Landing could offer, but Elia’s private rooms were a different matter entirely). With the slightest hint of uncertainty in her voice (that few would pick up on but those who could read her as an open book): “Come, sit with me.”
Oberyn’s hesitancy was less obscured: her invitation was met with a shifting gaze away, the fingers of one hand tightening into the folds of his outer robes, smile faltering by a degree. Siblings fought and they were certainly no exception, but never had something so destructively decisive passed between them, and he, in the face of his sister’s apparent forgiveness, was rather at a loss.
“Neither, only tired,” was in reply to her question. He watched her settle herself down without moving to answer her invitation, the twitch manifest across the side of his face betraying an old habit, teeth worrying at the inside of his cheek -- a sure sign of uncertainty. “What occasion calls for boar?”
Her heart ached, then; not from the pain of absence, but for the change wrought between them. But her own path, the actions that she would take, were blessedly clear to her as she replied (had been clear to her since she had ordered her thoughts in the weeks after Oberyn had left for Dorne, as the rest of her life settled into some form of normalcy once more).
“Only men in the forest bringing one down, I believe. Gallant knightly excellence et cetera et cetera. They require smiles, not interest; if they cared they’d know venison as far superior.” A beat, a glance away (out of the south-facing window) before she continued. “If you are too tired, I can wait and see you tomorrow. It’s alright.”
A shake of his head, a lock of dark hair escaping the leather cord that kept his hair tied back from his face (Quentyn had been after him for weeks, bemoaning his prince’s relatively unkempt state, until Oberyn had snapped at him to keep his scissors to himself) as his gaze returned to her. He watched her look out in the direction of Dorne, a shoulder briefly rolled in a semblance of a shrug. Tone rueful -- “Tomorrow is for the court; I have brought more of Dorne with me, and we are to do our little dance before the throne. No, I am here to see you now.” He stepped forward, caught one of her hands, thumb rolling across her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the court at this moment -- cardinal sin, but there we go.” A tense smile, the necessary caveats unspoken between them (wrath and fire of the king aside, whims of the spider aside). “I would wait on you, Oberyn.”
She squeezed his fingers with hers for a beat, before tangling both hands together. To bend and kiss his ankle as he had hers that evening weeks ago would be neither practical nor good for either of them, Elia thought; rising upon her knees and leaning forward, she pressed a kiss to the inside of her brother’s wrist. “I am sorry too. I did what I thought was right, but that is no excuse. So did you.”
Oberyn pulled his hand away, only to slide it beneath her arm. “Yes,” he began, and his voice was not ungrateful. “You did and I did. But enough, Elia, of apologies. Get up now--” he moved to straighten her up again; Elia of Dorne did not kneel, least of all to him. “Enough of this. Get up.”
And she did stand, a careful movement with the aid of his hand, ever aware of how her balance shifted now, the differences in how her body obeyed her. “As you say.” She cupped his cheek in a gentle hand for a moment, pressing a soft kiss to the other before her fingers gave a gentle tug to the lock of loose hair. “Bossing already, heaven help me. You, Prince, need a haircut.”
With a downward tip of his chin and a rakish grin -- “Yes. Too much Doran along with being permitted to run wild makes for an unseemly combination, I know. As for you--” He paused, permitting her her ministrations as he looked her over closely, the smile replaced with a thinned frown and a quizzical arch of a brow. “Are you well?” he asked, though it was clear he had already formed his own conclusions.
“Keep it and I dare say some of the younger men will be attempting to imitate it within the week, to their families’ chagrin.” The set of her mouth indicated that however much he needed a haircut, she would not find this outcome a disappointment. “Doran will be thrilled.”
Don’t frown so, she bit back before replying to the question, instead reporting: “I am rather tired, and of many things, but well enough. The baby makes his presence felt, that is all.”
“Ah, so we have decided it’s a he, then?” The frown remained -- deepened, perhaps, at the thought of a brother for a Targaryen princess -- but it was short-lived, the fact that the child stirred pushing his private misgivings aside for the time being.
As he (finally) joined her upon the pillows, he continued, “Tired is expected, but you’re thinner than last time. Have you told the kitchens what you cannot bear to eat? Like boar?” A snort.
“I would dearly love another daughter, but the crown would have a male heir, and I have not yet given one.” She did not speak of the queen her daughter would make, were she to take the crown as it would have been in Dorne (nor of her thoughts on Targaryen marriages and what they entailed); such thoughts only lead to others even less pleasant. Instead, Elia added with a shrug, “Rhaegar thinks it is a boy, which is perhaps not surprising. It feels like a boy, at least now.”
“They know some. Events are another matter, but I am hardly without ways to obtain a meal I prefer in private. I do eat, Oberyn, but there is no pleasure in it.”
“If Rhaegar thinks it is a boy, then it must be so,” Oberyn replied without a hint of irony, pulling her hand onto his lap and covering it with his. “I suppose we could use a few more boys in the family. Anyway, if it stirs and is healthy, I am content. Just as you will be when you see what spices and grains I have brought from home. They can keep their damned boar.”
“Perhaps.” She leant her head against his shoulder with the lightest of sighs (a sigh of homecoming). “As will I be content. And I dare say I will be more than content with your goods -- down with boar.” A smile. “Though I cannot promise any greater desire for it, I promise to love the food of home. And to eat it, desire or no.”
After a moment of silence more companionable than awkward, now: “Tell me of home, Oberyn. Tell me of you.”
Letting the pillows accept his weight, Oberyn leaned back, stretching his arm across her shoulders and bending it at the elbow so that he could lightly stroke her brow as he spoke. “I shall hold you to your promises -- perhaps you will find Ellaria’s advice on the matter to be helpful? She seems to be keeping things down.” A mild tone; milder, indeed, than his smile. “As for me -- well. I need a haircut, apparently.”
The retort regarding the state of his hair which might otherwise have been upon her lips was entirely set aside, a smile of delight instead appearing to match his own as she laughed quietly. “Ellaria is here, and with child? Well done, darling. Though I don’t suppose it took effort... but there now, I am even happier, O He of the Disgraceful Hair.” A beat. “I’m going to have to see your girls one day soon.”
There was little point in reminding her that they lived under their brother’s protection at the Water Gardens, for getting Elia past the walls of the Red Keep without a hundred pairs of eyes on her -- at least -- at all hours of the day would be next to impossible. So, with another little shrug, he said, “I have Sarella to claim still -- her mother drops anchor at Lannisport soon, so perhaps you will get to see her. And if Ellaria cares to stay for the duration of the pregnancy...” A crooked smile. “Paramours are not like spouse. You cannot order them to do anything they do not wish to.”
"Well." Elia was silent for a moment, as though that were all the answer she would give to his words that were as much about omissions as what was said. And then, tone somewhat guarded -- "I would not blame her if she wanted to leave. We shall see, I suppose, in the fullness of time." The gilt of King's Landing did not take long to wear on a person, and for all her unspoken plans for the shape of an alternate court (an alternate way, within her own sphere of influence) such things were impossible to implement to any significant degree whilst Aerys sat the Iron Throne and his wife led the court proper.
"I would very much like to see Sarella, if it can be done. Rhaenys misses you greatly -- she’s been talking for weeks now about showing Uncle Viper her mastery of new lessons.” An amusement and a pain both, given his absence and its cause. But Elia smiled wider then, a brightening (despite his casual words on orders within marriage). “As for paramours, I very much believe you will thrive together entirely without orders, and I have not even met your lady properly -- which we must remedy."
“We will.” Oberyn idly knocked the flat of his thumb across his sister’s knuckles, seemingly the slower to be drawn into the quiet cheer that Elia gathered to herself despite the implications that lay behind his previous words. But when the smile he wore crooked on his face broadened, it was true, gaze dancing with warmth and more than just a little mischief. Tomorrow -- ah, tomorrow the flowers of Dorne’s nobility that he had brought with him would be presented to the court, and among them would be Lord Uller’s bastard daughter, his own paramour, not quite (yet) heavy with his child. Elia, at least, would be entertained -- leave the Tyrells and the rest of them to their empty horror.
“-- she is here, like I said. I hope you two can become great friends.” A kiss was brushed against her brow. “As for my Princess Niece, you should warn her that weeks correcting her cousins’ spelling has made me a cranky uncle, eager to be amazed.”
She did not wish to speak fully of that which had parted them, not at the first moment back in King’s Landing (and certainly not the quiet misgivings that remained still, despite reconciliation and returned sweetness), and so she allowed the topic of conversation to fall away entirely, thinking instead upon the moderate, manageable scandal that the next day would bring with true pleasure; it was always duller, without Oberyn, less joy to be found in the smallest things.
“I am sure we will, Oberyn. Let the capital gasp in horror. And I give you due warning now: of all the things that I myself am teaching her, it is Rhoynish and pickpocketing that the little one excels at most. Her spelling I cannot speak for, you may have to frown at that.”
A slow blink followed Elia’s words, apparent confusion fleeting across his expression. “Pickpocketing, Elia? How do you know enough of that to teach it? I am shocked. I frown at that.”
There was rich humour in her voice, though also an underlying truth: “I was a spoilt child, Oberyn; mother and Doran did not have to approve all lessons for me to get them from somewhere. I despise being spied on, and little spies for curious parents got false words and their pockets picked when you were away in Old Town, which made my point without need for Doran’s involvement -- I can hardly give Rhaenys less, now can I? She practices on me.”
“Seven save us all.” A snort. Oberyn was not entirely surprised -- Elia, after all, was wondrously resourceful -- yet the thought of her teaching her daughter how to pick pockets was one that would provide him with lengthy private amusement. “-- so, have you stolen many trinkets from the--” and here his lip curled, “Spider’s little birds?”
With a gesture that made clear what Elia thought of her brother’s appeal to the gods, she laughed, before shrugging. “His birds are very quick, and have few trinkets to steal. It was tempting to leave them orange peel, last year, but I would prefer that the Spider does not have my full measure if I can possibly have it so.” A beat. “Florent and Redwyne servants, however, have found themselves sadly without rings, letters and coins. Such a shame, that they were not more careful with their possessions.”
Sister, you are wise. It was easy, sometimes, to forget that this court was now Elia’s home, the workings of it a complicated web she would have to grapple with for the rest of her life -- she could not just leave, as was his wont, should every secret and every talent she possessed to help her in the tussle with it be exposed.
“Any Lannister servants?”
“No Lannisters, but what are Brax, Payne, and Swyft but catspaws? It stands to reason that they would report to Lord Tywin.” Her lips curved upwards in a humourless smile as she inclined her head slightly towards the door, beyond which her maid waited in an antechamber, a sentinel one step closer than guards. “Sabela and I do well enough with them. The Payne tried to bribe her, which shows abysmal judgement.”