Chapter Text
158 AC
Her name is Obara.
She reminds herself every morning, when she puts on her simple dress and walks barefoot to the well. She gathers water - all girls her age do that in the morning. If they have younger children in the house, they go twice or thrice to the well. She has a younger brother, so naturally, she goes twice. Brings two full baskets. As she should. Then goes to help prepare food and clean the hut.
Her little brother - Doran is his name - she reminds herself, is three years her younger. She already knows that he is smart, most likely the smartest man she’ll ever meet. Every time they are alone and she does something for him - things that a dutiful sister ought to do for younger brother - he thanks her, then apologises, and thanks her once more. He never does it if anybody else is present - not even their… their uncle, Ryon, who raises them.
She reminds herself that they escaped from Planky Town, fleeing dragon’s wrath. Their uncle has lost his appetite for war… has lost his war hunger and wishes only for a peaceful life and to raise his nephew and his sister far away from war.
She is almost seven, and she already knows men are harsher, women gentler; she has seen it.. She watches older girls smile and all the young boys fight and sing and dance and knows that she has to be careful. She cannot smile or tilt her head; she must not laugh at their foolishness. She only smiles at her little brother. If she ever smiles at anyone, they will hope she’ll wish to have their bastard.
She smiles at girls, and laughs with them, and braids their hair. They tell her stories, about boys they like, about dresses and flowers. She likes them and hopes she can take them with her once she leaves this place. If she ever leaves this place.
Girls are the ones who tell her about the witch. It is a custom, they say. To visit her once you turn seven, for her to foretell your life. She does not believe them, but they are eager and she is bored most of the days, so she agrees and comes with them.
The witch takes their pies and herbs and laces and invites three of them in. They sit around as she gives them each to draw a bone from the sack. That one is for their husband, the witch says. Nods when she sees a cup - a gentle man, shakes her head when sees a sword - a harsh man and gasps when she sees Obara’s bone. The dragon, the witch says. Your husband will be a lustful and harsh and greedy and violent man, beware him, child.
They draw another time - as many as they can grab, the witch tells them, to know what their children will be like. The goat, the wolf, the eagle - the stubborn, the loyal, the clever. The hair - the meek one. The witch shakes her head once more, when she sees Obara’s pick - the dragon and the sun. Your daughter will be a delight and your son will follow his father.
The witch tells them to draw once more - for what will cause them pain and suffering. The wolf and the cup. The sword and the sea. Obara’s pick is the spring and the kinslayer and the dragon.
The witch tells them they drew for Maiden, they drew for Mother and they drew for Crone. Now they should go outside and come back in turn and ask and draw once more.
Obara stays outside, thinking and feeling her knees shake. There in the mountains, all days seem peaceful. It is easy to forget that dragon king had killed her two uncles, and many other noble men, and raped and pillaged all his way through Dorne to the Sunspear. He is five and ten, she remembers, and is called “The Young Dragon”, just eight years her senior.
When she enters and sits in front of the witch, she is no longer Obara, a lowborn girl from the Planky town.
“Will my son be king?” Myriah of Nymeros Martell asks the witch.
161 AC
The Dragon king is dead, she is ten and once again called Princess Myriah.
Her brother - Prince Maron, she reminds herself, for she still sometimes slips and calls him Doran. Ser Gerold has shed his false name of sellsword Ryon and follows her as her sworn sword.
The other Dragon - Baelor - has walked into Dorne and passed the mountains. Now he sits with her father, who is Prince of Dorne, and talks about peace and reparations. Her mother tells that this dragon king is kind, humble and pious. Myriah does not believe it. He is a dragon: lustful, harsh, greedy, and violent.
She knows what this dragon wants and she is ready to give it to him, for he will pass his twisted throne to her son. Their son. She will have to make sure no one questions her little dragon’s birth. Both of her sons. Her second may be destined for kinslaying and taking away his brother’s crown, but she will love him nonetheless, for the dragon cannot change its skin.
She is dressed and painted and her brother, now seven, stands behind her shoulder. He still believes he is to be her sworn sword once he is older, and she is the ruling Princess of Dorne. She does not tell him otherwise, just keeps gently pushing him towards studying histories and languages.
She comes before her father, the Prince, and his guest, the Dragon king. She welcomes him politely, not showing she is aware he has come to take her for a second wife, as Aegon the Dragon wed Rhaenys, who died in his conquest of Dorne.
The dragon smiles, delighted to see her. He has heard of her beauty, and her father has promised a portrait of hers for him. He has a cousin, her junior by two years, the dragon says, named Daeron, after the late king. Her father approves, and if she is not against it, little prince Daeron will grow and become her husband in due time.
She accepts and thanks her father the Prince, and the Dragon King for such an honorable match. The dragon promises to send her Prince Daeron’s portrait and she blushes.
Later, in her rooms, she cries and wails. Why could she not marry this gentle dragon, this pious man, this softspoken king, and why does she have to wait for a man that will be lustful and harsh and greedy and violent, like his namesake.
When the dragon leaves with his brother’s bones, the Prince tells his daughter and heir that this match may not yet happen, although a Dragon Prince would be a perfect husband for the Princess of Dorne. She respectfully asks her father to make sure that Prince Maron gets an education fitting the ruling Prince and a match that would be made with the expectation of producing the future of Nymeros Martell.
169 AC
The match almost does not happen.
King Baelor has locked his sisters away, prayed, and sent letters for the last two years, demanding that Prince Daeron and Princess Myriah be wed in his newly Great Sept of King’s Landing still under construction.
She is ten and eight, and she has learnt all she could about Dragon kings of old and their Valyrian ancestry. She knows little about her match, only that his supposed letters to her are well composed and neatly written. His father, Prince Aegon, is said to be a courteous man, although lustful and with a hatred for the Dornish.
Maron accompanies her, for their father is ill and cannot travel north. He is close in age to Prince Daeron, and he plans to insinuate himself into the dragon prince’s life and learn from him. He brings falcons and horses, ready to be whatever the Dragon Prince might need.
She greets King Baelor first - he has thinned, and his hair has grown, and he is no longer the sweet boy of ten and six as she remembers him. He wears septon’s clothes and greets her as a septon. Then she sees a boy with plump cheeks, wearing black and red and looking at her as if she were the Maiden.
He speaks to her of Dornish songs, Dornish customs and Dornish wines. He shows her a Dornish pavilion he has built for her and Dornish plants he has planted in the garden. He talks to Maron about ancient histories, takes him hunting, and invites them both. He stays at her side as if he were her cupbearer, and blushes when she slightly touches his hand.
The Great Sept is crowded, and King Baelor weds them, and her Daeron, not the Young Dragon, her kind and gentle Prince puts black cloak over her shoulders and blushes as if he were the maiden being taken. He stays at her side for the whole wedding feast. Once they are inside their chambers, he stutters and offers to bleed himself to stain the sheets and to sleep on the floor next to the door if she so wishes.
That night she teaches him all about Dorne and her customs he could not learn from books.