The warm breeze passes by the room coming from the big window, the ornamented glasses of wine sit on the table, already empty, Doran and Arianne are on the other side of the table looking at the two big boxes now in the center of the Room.
"Our esteemed guest refused to tell what gifts he brought with him," Oberyn said.
"If we speaking from Lord Palestars, maybe they're paintings?" Doran suggests " his paintings are becoming legendary amongst the nobility, both Westerosi and Essosi."
"A good suggestion Prince Martell but a wrong one, before we continue I should warn while they're gifts, no doubt, they are quite... Gruesome, Arianne is quite young I wouldn't want for her to see such a scene, but she's your daughter and the decision falls to you."
The atmosphere in the room has a shift, Oberyn's smile and exuberance seem to have diminished somehow, Doran's once welcoming and somehow soft hosting becomes sharp and suspicious, and Arianne seems a bit lost in the sudden shift but she quickly schools her features and settles for a neutral facade.
"What is inside the boxes?" Doran asks with a sharp tone.
"Justice, revenge, an offer of friendship." I get up and go to the boxes, I put my hand in one of them look at the trio and ask.
"Is she staying?" A silent conversation seems to occur between Arianne and Doran.
"Yes, she is my heir and I can't shelter her forever."
Arianne expression becomes a little bitter for a second,
I nod and pass my hand some inches above the box Telekinetictly open it with a clink.
"I would cover my nose if I were you."
As I say that the top of the box opened and a foul smell comes out, seems like just some hours outside the ice made him start to smell.
"By the old gods and the new Antares, what's in the box?" Oberyn asked as he cover his nose with the silk sleeve.
I'm sure if he stopped to really smell it, he would recognize it, but the sudden change from warm summer air to decaying corpse makes even the most experienced warrior cover their nose.
"Take a look."
Oberyn approaches the box and looks inside the sudden emotions pass fast through his face first came anger then realization, confusion, satisfaction, and anger again but subdued, inside is, of course, the body of Amory Lorch but he was broken enough to fit in a box half his size.
While that happens I go and start to open the second box this one has no foul smell, and I made sure he was kept clean after all, Oberyn approaches and looks inside, there is a look of almost fascination on his face.
"He is still alive, just unconscious." I walk back to my chair.
"Oberyn what is it," Doran has spoken with an authority someone expected from the ruler of Dorne, Oberyn walk back to the table take his cup, filled it, and downed it, he let out a short humorless laugh.
"Ser Amory Lorch and Ser Gregor Clegane are in those boxes, Prince Doran," I say.
Doran frown straight his back on the chair and for a moment, he just stood there deep in thought no emotion besides the frown on his face, Arianne much less trained, was wide-eyed.
"Is really them Oberyn?" Doran asked with his face now neutral again.
"There is only one man that big in Westeros, even if he is... smaller now." He drinks another cup.
"That was a bold move, lord Palestars, a dangerous one as well, what if the lion catches the sent of your actions and traces it to us?" Doran says as Oberyn fills my cup and sits on the chair beside me.
"Ser Amory Lorch was last seen in a dirty tavern in Lannisport he left in the night and was never seen again, the only one who knows anything about it is under my supervision already in the Moat." I take a sip of the wine is very sweet.
"Ser Gregor Clagane, unfortunately, died in a terrible fire that destroyed the Clagane keep and killed many of his men as well, may he rest in peace."
"I see, and what would you need for this extraordinary gift?"
"Somewhere in your lands you have a cave with black water in it, I want that and also would like for you to deal with the transportation of it to my lands for a while."
"That's it, why would you risk the wrath of the Lannisters for pitch?" Doran asked
"Risk the wrath of the Lannisters." I laugh softly " There is no risk for me in this exchange Prince Doran, the Lannisters will not find what happened, and even if by divine providence they do find out, they can't prove it." I take another sip of the wine" Let's analyze the worst scenario here, the Lannisters find out and want revenge how will they achieve that, assassins? I laugh at the thought, even a faceless man will find it difficult to perform such a task."
"Perhaps they will try and influence the king to hurt me somehow, but the thing is, I am the only one who can make the lifelike portrait of his long lost love, I am the only one that can enchant it so it will laugh for him, he starts to give me grief and that painting will burn and then he will have to ask me for another, besides his brother in all but blood trust me enough for me to receive the benefit of the doubt, bringing any armed force to the north is suicide in more ways than one."
"So you see Prince Doran this is a win-win for us, you receive revenge for the hideous acts against your family, justice for the crimes left unpunished, and I get my oil and perhaps a new friendship as well." I finish my speech and my wine.
A moment of silence stretches itself until Doran speaks again.
"You gave us lots to think about my lord, much to plan," a smile shows on his face" Oberyn please go tell the servants to prepare a grand feast, tomorrow we will be celebrating the... The new friendship between House Martell and Palestars, while that happens you maybe go around Sunspear my lord, you may find it quite enjoyable."
"I can show him around the Palace Father!" Arianne half Shouted.
Doran frowns for a moment, Oberyn has a knowing smile though.
"Very well then, tomorrow you may spend your afternoon showing the grounds to our guest, Oberyn see that our..." He looks at the boxes" Other guests are put in quarters appropriate for them." Oberyn gave a dangerous smile back.
I was given a spacious and well-furnished room a have at least five of my owl guards on the corridor, just to not let them stand on the stables, well time for some rest
...the next day...
The castle of Sunspear is not super impressive on the inside but neither was Winterfell or my own castle for that matter but there is a breeze that runs through the stone halls that in this hit temperature make it so enjoyable to have a walk, and there is a lot greener than I expected as well, many plants on the walls and around the pillars, as we pass through an isolated garden I hear the voice of my companion.
"So lord Palestars how to have you have been finding Dorne? I must admit my astonishment at your clothing choice, black doesn't fit well on such a hot day, I could help find less constricting garbs," she says with a smile that doesn't transmit innocence.
Is she really flirting with me, she met me like a day ago and this is the first thing she says to me while we are alone, what was her age at this time? She looks 16 but she is 15 right?
"I find the temperature quite familiar to my former home, is a bit nostalgic, and don't worry about me princess, I can handle the heat." that came out wrong.
"Is that so," she chuckled and latched my arm putting it between her breasts, I cast detect thoughts while she approach her face to my ear." Perhaps we should go to somewhere more private, so things could get more heated." She nibbles my ear.
Ok calm the fuck down, you didn't die and got reborn just to fall for this kind of shit, I look into her mind, and... Damn the hormones hit this one like a wrecking ball, she is truly very horny, but the rest is Bravado.
She does want me to take her virginity, the ultimate act of rebellion against her father who plans to replace her with her brother Quentyn on the throne of Dorne and then marry her to any old lord he can, at least is what she thinks, right Doran didn't share his plans with her.
"Oh princess, I don't think you can handle that heat, if only you were more experienced" I smirk at her, and she blushes not only at our proximity but from the embarrassment of being called out.
"P-perhaps you could teach me, my lord, I will be an insatiable student."
I will give her this, she got backbone, but I am the captain now.
"What is it? Too much of a northern prude to handle a Dornish woman." She's trying to rile me up now, cute, but this is the perfect opportunity to test something.
"Since you are so inclined in doing this I will give you a taste only, if you handle it well, we will see." I gently raise her chin with my fingers and kiss her, probably more familiar territory for her since she melts into it and even put her tongue to work, she is quite intense, and I can feel the pleasure starts to blossom and spread through her mind, at this moment I cast intensify emotion.
Intensify emotion is quite the spell, it takes the emotion someone is predominantly feeling and ramps up to eleven, an irritated or angry individual will become furious to the point of randomly attacking people, and a happy individual will become super energetic and start to laugh uncontrollably, someone felling pleasure though...
Arrianne eyes widen and roll up, as she moans in my mouth her legs weaken and tremble but her grasp on my arm turns vice-like, as soon as her mouth leaves me she releases a long moan, I could sense in her mind the paralyzing ecstasy she is feeling, the spell might stay up to a minute but I let it last just enough to her bask a little on the felling.
Heh, that reminds me of the flash and reverse flash meme.
"Let us sit by the shade Princess is awfully hot in the sun." We find a bench under a tree in the garden.
After some moments she comes down from her high she is breathing heavily and very sweaty, and her legs are finally under control.
We hear conversation approach soon Tyene and Obara came into view they see us and come to speak, and Arrianne quickly let go of my arm.
"My lord," she gives a courtesy" we Heard that will be a huge celebration of the friendship that the Martells and the Palestars now have!" Obara said first and then she looks at the girl beside me "Arrianne are you well?"
Arianne freezes and fails to come up with an explanation she probably still has a fuzzy mind.
"We were strolling through the garden and the heat got to her, we decided to sit a bit and I have been boring her with some stories of the Greyjoy rebellion." I smile at them.
"Oh I would love to hear them as well, we only have the account of the sailors that come here, it would be grand to hear from someone that fought himself in the war," Obara said, Tyene who was smiling at Arianne until now rolled her eyes and said.
"Come, Arianne, you know how Obara gets when anything related to battle is mentioned, there will be no other subject discussed here, come let us take a bath so we can wash off the... Sweat on this hot day." Arianne is blushing hard.
"Y-yes Tyene I would like that, my lord it was a pleasure... Farewell." She lightly bows her head.
"It was indeed a pleasure princess." She and Tyene quickly walk away, leaving me with Obara to discuss stories of the Greyjoy rebellion.
...
The day was fleeing fast and at the moment I am taking a nice long bath in a big bath, like poll size, is a really luxurious bath with pinkish marble...splash I hear the sound come from behind me in the bath. shit.
I turn around and see the one who entered the bath with me... It's Oberyn, he like me is naked, just two guys naked in the bath.
"Hello Antares, how is the bath?" He smiles while his back is resting on the edge of the bath on the other side of the bath he has a jug of wine with him and two cups.
"I find it quite nice, price Oberyn thought I must admit I didn't expect company."
"I wanted to have a talk with you while we have the time, you know without all the nobility noising around."
"Well, we are here, we have wine and we got literally nothing to hide ourselves with," I say and he gives a joyous laugh, he fills his cup and then drained it in one go.
" You know when you showed me these two, I thought about killing you, that was my first instinctual thought, I felt for a second that you stole something from me, from my family." He fills both cups this time"That of course was just a reflex, But after a good session of lovemaking with my paramour, my mind was much clearer I noticed how deeply that gift of yours affected me, I was ready to wait years to have just a shimmer of revenge against those bastards, and now you come here and give two of the three people I hate the most, as a gift." He gives me one of the cups" what I am trying to say here is that you are not just a friend to house Martell but to me as well." He smiles and drains his cup again, I drink as well, and the strong sweet taste of the wine fills my mouth.
"Oberyn, I must say..." We heard a gasp from the door and we both look at it.
This time is Arianne, she is just like Oberyn and me, naked as the day she was born, and she has a killer body, calm down boy, I look at Oberyn and say.
"You know you Dornish really are unhinged people." Oberyn laughs and says.
"What can I say, our blood runs hot." He turns back to the entrance but she's gone. " I guess she is less unhinged than I."
"Such a high bar to reach, Oberyn" he laughs again.
...
As walk into the garden where the party is happening I see a rainbow of different outfits all around the courtyard, many minor nobles are around, you know the kind that stays in the court of their liege lord to gather favor and gossip, just great, after a sea of minor nobles that I don't really care came to do small talk and ask for paintings in a lower price or ask for medical advice or ask for a magic trick, I grab a cup of wine and drain it full and then other for me to sip, I'm starting to understand why the nobility drinks so much, A shame I need barrels of this to get drunk.
"Starting well I see my friend." Thank gods is Oberyn.
"I hate parties like this." I drink from my cup he looks around.
"Like this how?" I look around at the 50-something people in the garden some familiar faces, the sand snakes, and Arianne are in a conversation on a corner, Doran is surrounded by nobles, all talking at the same time, poor guy.
"You know you, stand around politely smiling and shaking hands, with a bunch of people that you will not remember the next day, it fell like a waste of time, I am a small party guy." He seems to ponder something for a moment.
"You know what, give me some time to drink, then I make a scene and you take me out of here and we are free, but first come here someone wants to talk to you" He puts a hand on my shoulder and drags me to his paramour Ellaria, he pats me in the back and says he will start drinking then he leaves.
"My lady" I gently bow my head to her.
"There is no need for that, please call me Ellaria."
"Well please call me Antares then." She smiles and hugs me, giving me one kiss on each of my cheeks, that came out of nowhere.
"I thank you Antarres, you have taken away a very heavy burden from my love." She walks to the cushioned bench I help her sit" Since I got heavy with his child have been more worried about him, his almost obsessive pursuit of revenge, I don't know, I had a feeling it would kill him." I could BLOW her head with some of the future information I have, just kidding.
"But he seems so much lighter now, and so am I for that, so from the bottom of my heart thank you." Man, the show did her dirty, she is a sweetheart.
"Perhaps when I already gave birth, you, Oberyn, and I can work on the boy he wants so much." She smiles looking me up and down, Is someone spiking the wine with aphrodisiacs?
"I will think about Ellaria." We hear a commotion, well that's my cue.
"Excuse me, Ellaria, your husband is giving me an excuse to leave and rest early."
"Such a shame, I knew of some people who will be disappointed that they could not dance with you."
"They are lucky for not dancing with me, my dancing is a disaster the size of the Doom of Valyria." She laughed at that.
"Go on then, spare the noble house Martell the embarrassment that Oberyn will unleash."
"I hear and obey my lady."
...
I found Oberyn singing inside a fountain, naked, nobody was that surprised, probably the majority of the people looking have seen him naked one moment or another. I fetch him, some clothes and we skedaddle out of there.
"You *hick* have to admit I'm a great actor." Oberyn slurred.
"It is really acting, if you wanted to be naked, and were truly drunk?"
"Of course," guess I Can't argue with that.
I leave him in his chambers and go to mine as I arrived at my chamber's door Asa salutes me and says.
"My lord there's a visitor waiting for you inside."
"You let someone in my chambers?"
"She is accompanied by our guards and I thought it wouldn't be wise to recuse a meeting for you." Fair enough.
As I open the door I see a certain Dornish princess with a see-through silk robe laying in my bed two owl guards standing on both sides of the bed.
"Why you don't get out of this heavy armor and lay down with me darling."
"Are you really trying to seduce one of my guards on my own bed in my chambers"
She looks at me smiling naughtily" Are you jealous?"
"Of what?" I answer and she pouts.
"Im just trying to get a reaction out of them, any reaction at all, if I didn't see them walk into the room I wouldn't be able to differentiate them from an empty suit of armor." Oh boy.
"So why are you here princess?"
"I told you I would be an insatiable student, I'm here for my next lesson!"
Sigh I approach the table, of course, there's a jug of wine here, I have a drink, and there is a cup of something else here as well I take a sniff... tansy, mint, wormwood, maybe honey, pennyroyal, its moon tea, she is serious about it.
"Why so obsessed with losing you maidenhead with me?" She rolls on the bed and looks at me upside down.
"Who is a better candidate? Some old fart my father is trying to push me? Or the most powerful sorcerer on the continent and a handsome man to boot, besides I need my pride back, Tyene laughed herself out of breath when I told her what happened in the garden." She puts her long legs up and rests them on the headboard.
"Why would you tell her that?"
"We tell each other everything."
"Your father would not approve."
"Pff, if I don't get pregnant is fine, I brought moon tea, you know more than half of the maidens in Sunspear aren't maidens at all, my uncle lives here remember."
I take a deep breath, you know what sure, why not, she wants it, and to be honest so do I.
"You two out, warn the rest of the Owlguard that I don't want any visitors, And I mean it."
"Oh gods I forgot about them!" Arianne hides her face with her hands.
I start to take my clothes off, Arianne took her hands out of her face and observes from the bed with lust in her eyes.
"Ready for your lesson?" She gives a melodic giggle.
That night if someone were allowed to walk close to the doors of the chambers of the lord of the Moat they would have heard, moans and screams of pleasure of two lovers, all night.
...
I must admit, I needed that, no matter how much magic healing or race traits I have, there is an edge that grows when you do not have "good exercise" for a while, currently, I am laying in bed and Arianne is passed out on my chest, I made sure to give her a perfect first time, she got wilder as the night went on, and let me tell you magic is great for everything, just saying, we sure enjoyed ourselves tonight.
Later in the morning, Arianne started to stir, she slowly opens her eyes, blinks them a couple of times, and looks up at me, she smiles and rests her chin on my chest.
"Good morning" I start the conversation
"Yes, it is," I hear her stomach growl"There is something to eat here?" I chuckled.
"I will ask the owlguard to get something from the kitchen, but I believe you have some tea to drink first." I will not take risks about that, I know the moon tea is genuine, I just need to see her drink.
She moves her head to look at the table where the concoction currently is, then She looks back at me.
"I-if my father offered you my hand, would you take it, would you make me your wife?"
Would I? I don't know, because to be fair I didn't think about marriage at all, all I need I can take by cunning, knowledge, and power, I honestly didn't see the need to marry for political reasons, I know her for about two days and we had a great night, do I want to be tied to her and the Martells? I like them but such a thing sends messages.
"Perhaps, would you abdicate from the title of princess of Dorne and leave your land and all your friends behind to be with me in the north?"
She thinks for a moment and sends me a smile.
"Perhaps." cheeky bitch.
She gets up goes to the table and drinks the moon tea in one gulp.
"But I don't think I am ready for such change yet.