Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It had taken Sansa many moons to travel from the Eyrie to Castle Black – Brienne leading her on a rough, roundabout route through the scraggy hills of the Vale; the swamps of the Neck; the wide, hilly plains of the Barrowlands; and west through the thick, snowy forest of the Wolfswood, to meet the last of the Kingsroad towards the Wall itself; ducking and hiding from any sign of other travellers to keep Sansa safe from those who hunted the murderess of Harrold Hardyng.

Quite what she would do when she reached the Wall, and how the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch could protect her, neither she nor Brienne were clear, but there was nowhere else to go but Essos, and who did she know in Essos who could help her, how could she survive there alone? It was necessity that brought her north to Castle Black, a lack of any other options, and all through the journey she pictured only one thing in her mind: a room with a door and a bath inside of it where she could slip every dirt-smeared limb and strand of hair under the water and wash herself clean. She did not even imagine it would be a warm bath, nor that it would be situated in a clean, welcoming room; only the water and the closed door were important.

She got her wish when Jon handed her over to his steward, Satin, who led her to Jon's bedchamber with the bath stood in front of its roaring fire, and a door she could lock from the inside. She wept when she slipped into its steaming waters, cried far freely than she had done when she had hugged Jon in the courtyard outside and he had clutched her to him and swore to her that he would keep her safe.

She had tried to be strong on the journey north, tried not to be a burden to Brienne who was risking her life on her behalf, and not to remember her charmed life in the Eyrie - the dresses, servants, lemon cakes, feather beds, warm fires and rich feasts; nor the horror of those last few days and her harrowing midnight escape through the Bloody Gate; not to think of how narrow her future was now, how impossible it would be for her to find any measure of safety again; but now that she is alone and cradled by the waters of her longed-for bath, she lets her emotions loose like a storm, muffling wails against her damp hands, scrubbing her skin red-raw as if she could scrub away everything she has seen and done, her body sending shivers and waves out into the water.

She is composed again by the time she gets dressed in a dark tunic and loose trousers the steward provided for her, covering herself with a large cloak of velvet and fur, and shuffling into the next room to join Jon in his solar for food and bitter ale.

He stands up when she enters and embraces her again, and she breathes in the smell of leather and fire-smoke, sweat and ink, and underneath that, a familiar smell, one that she has dreamed of for years now, family, home.

"Are you well?" he asks her as she holds her chapped hands around the bowl of soup.

"Well as I can be," she answers with a shrug and he smiles wryly. She does not want to use false courtesies with him, she is too tired to pretend to be the lady he once knew. "Are you?" she asks.

"Not really," he says.

"Why do your men stare at you so strangely?"

"You would not believe me if I told you," he says, rubbing a hand across his thick beard.

"You have a proper beard now," she murmurs, leaning over to brush it with a fingertip while he moves his head away, scowling like an irritated brother. "Tell me, I want to know," she says, and clutches his hand.

He seems to startle at her touch. They did not touch much as children, they did not spend many hours together neither, since her mother disapproved of it, but her mother is dead, and Sansa has not been able to touch a single one of her family members for years now, had thought she might never be in the same room as one again, yet here they are together, the last of the Starks.

He squeezes her hand and then reaches for his ale. "They are not my men, because I am no longer the Lord Commander. There was a mutiny," he says, "members of the Night's Watch rose up against me because they disagreed with my decision to let the Wildlings through the Wall to safety. There are dangers in the North, Sansa, an army of the dead–" he shakes his head, "-you will not believe me."

"An army of the dead?"

He tells her about the White Walkers and their army. He tells her that he was killed, that he died, and that a red priestess brought him back, and Sansa believes him, even more so when the priestess in question enters the room and she experiences Melisandre's otherworldly aura for herself.

"So where will you go now?" Sansa asks tentatively. If he is not Lord Commander then surely she will not be allowed to remain here either.

"Now-" he sighs and closes his eyes. He is weary and worn, the sullen expressions of his childhood have changed to the kind of frowns their father had, world-weary, knowing.

One of his advisors, a man named Edd, is in the room with them, along with Melisandre, and they seem just as eager to hear Jon's reply.

"Now," Jon says, looking at Sansa, "we head South. Or East, find somewhere safe."

"Safe," she says, as if weighing the word.

Edd and Melisandre argue with Jon, and tell him he has a responsibility to the North, a role in the wars to come, a duty to fight the dead. But Jon has already made up his decision, and he is stubborn like a Stark, Sansa thinks. Besides, as Jon argues, his brothers killed him, he gave his life and fulfilled the terms of his vow, his watch is over. He tells Melisandre that she should look to Daenerys for help, for her dragons can beat the army of the dead and she is obviously blessed by Melisandre's god of the flames, and he dictates a raven for Edd to send to Tyrion. All else, Jon says, is up to them, for now he will head south with his sister.

South, Sansa thinks and lets out a hysterical snort of laughter that has Jon looking at her concerned. More travel, she thinks, more traipsing through the woods and the plains and the swamps, more skulking through the night, more dirt and dust and grime, and hunger. Perhaps she will travel now for the rest of her days, perhaps this is her punishment for doing what she did, to wander forever and find no home.

Jon puts his hand on her shoulder and interrupts her moment of self-pity.

"Alright?" he asks.

She nods. "South," she says.

"I want to get warm," he says, with one of his odd down-turned smiles.

And after we get warm, then what? she does not ask. Where do we live, what do we do for money, how do we survive?

South, she thinks, and replaces her dream of a bath with the dream of standing in a warm garden at night, balmy wind floating across her bare shoulders, feet curled into grass. A bolder fantasy than the last.

Brienne enters the solar next, back in her armour, the sword she spent many hours sharpening and caring for during their journey on her hip.

"You're leaving?" Sansa asks.

The other woman nods and Sansa feels a quiver of panic in her stomach at the loss of her protector. Jon will keep her safe, she reminds herself, but there are so few people left who care for her, who she loves, that it is hard to say goodbye to another.

"I made a vow to your mother. I will continue searching for Arya now, and not rest until I find her."

"Godspeed," Jon says, and shakes her hand.

"Take care of her," Brienne says, eyeing Jon warily.

"Aye, I will."

Sansa bolts forward and hugs Brienne, startling her. "Thank you," she says, feeling the paucity of that word to describe what she feels about this giant of a woman, this hero from a song who came to her rescue.

A few days later, after the arrival of several ravens from the Vale demanding the return of Sansa to face her crimes, she and Jon leave Castle Black and follow the path of the Wall to Eastwatch where a boat awaits to take them to White Harbour. From there, they will travel south on horseback. We know nothing of Essosi customs, Jon had argued, and any ship we could find to take us there would have heard of the murderess Sansa Stark and would sell us for coin, and besides, we could not hide a white wolf on a boat to Essos.

On the boat they begin the mummery that they will have to adopt during their journey and perhaps for longer after that, that they are husband and wife. A necessity to keep her safe and for them to share a single cabin.

Jon scowls when she tells him to stop being silly and get up off the floor and share her bed, while the roiling northern seas tip their tiny cabin to and fro.

He looks even more distempered when she tells him teasingly, "good night, husband," and his frown makes her laugh.

"You'll fall off the bed if you lie on the edge like that," she says and he sighs long-sufferingly and shuffles closer.

They are quiet for a moment, listening to the smack of the waves against the hull, the creaking of ropes and sail. "Thank you," she says suddenly, and is embarrassed by the emotion in her voice.

"I haven't done anything yet," he says, and then leans over to kiss her on her forehead, beard scratching her skin.

There is so much they have yet to share, about the years they have spent apart from one another, the trials they must have both been through. She hasn't even told him—

"I didn't kill my husband," she blurts out.

"I know that," he says with a huff, shifting his shoulders to find a comfortable position on the hard bed.

He sounds so sure that it almost hurts her. What would he say if she told him everything she did do; all the dark, shameful secrets she holds tightly to herself; would he treat her kindly then?

She watches him on the boat and after they arrive in White Harbour and leave on horses he buys with the last of the money she brought with her, aside from the jewels sewn inside her clothes; observing the ways he has changed. He is more confident now, warier, tougher, with a physical strength surpassing many others. He is dangerous now, she realizes, and men give him a wide berth. Is it because he was brought back from the dead, has he been changed by it, forged into something harder? She does not ask, he seems to shy away from any discussion of his death.

Unlike men, women drift nearer, and look at him with desire and admiration. He is handsome now, he looks strong and comely with his black curls and thick beard, his full lips setting him apart from the other dour men of the North. Whore's lips, she heard a servant say once. Does he resemble his mother, whoever she was?

A few days out of White Harbour, when she is tired already from their nocturnal life of travelling under darkness and sleeping during the day, they reunite with Ghost who has taken the longer route through the forests of the North by himself. He greets Sansa first, which makes Jon huff with jealousy, and flops down at her feet, panting up at her with adoration. She leans down and hugs him, hiding her pleased smile in his fur, trying not to remember Lady and the pain her memory brings.

Sansa can hide her identity with a scarf, a veil, over her head, but hiding a fully-grown direwolf will be much more difficult. There is no question of not bringing him though. Jon says Ghost will keep her safe, while she thinks that the wolf will keep Jon safe – he who was foolish enough to be assassinated by his own men, who has, she has gathered, gotten himself into all sorts of dangers in the years they have been apart. Besides, Ghost is her favourite bedmate, and she makes sure to tell him that, loudly, so that Jon can hear and roll his eyes. Ghost hunts them food, and scouts ahead of them, watching for danger. It is a pity he is not large enough for us to ride him too, Sansa muses one evening, waking up in the abandoned hut where they had spent the day huddled against the wall as the rain lashed its way through open windows, to find that her horse has gone lame.

"We can sell my jewels to buy another horse," she says, as she sits behind Jon on his mount, burrowing her hands into his warm cloak.

He grunts a reply, his preferred mode of speech for the first hours of the day. And then her words make their way through. "No," he says gruffly, "we need to save those. We don't know how long our journey will be and we'll need to buy land when we get there. No," he shakes his head.

"One horse will tire of the two of us on its back," she says.

"I will find us another horse," he says firmly.

And he does. He has her hide herself with Ghost outside a large town in the Barrowlands, and he returns some hours later with a horse, and some more provisions. He will have stolen them from some rich man who would not miss them, she knows, because she has already experienced how concerned he is with his fellow man, how he worries about fairness and the fate of others, even as he says that he has given up his vow to serve.

It is the same as they pass further south – whenever they need something they cannot catch or make, he goes into towns and villages and comes back with them, along with a sour mood, she has noticed.

Let me go next time, she says only once, I can steal just as well as you. The anger he turns on her when she says this, the fury in his eyes for but a moment before it vanishes, and he looks only disapproving, means she never asks again.

Your master is a glum fellow, she tells Ghost the next time Jon is off on his own particular hunting trip.

Ghost huffs like he agrees, and she curls herself around his warm bulk and dreams that she is lying on a feather bed somewhere, clean and dry.

She cannot remember the last time she washed her hair. It takes too long to dry in the cold and when she does have water she uses it to wash the rest of her. She thought that travelling with a man might be more difficult than travelling with a woman when her moonblood came, but Jon was the first to mention her courses during their boat journey, asking her somewhat awkwardly about the things she might need, whether she wanted to rest during those particular days.

She was surprised that a man who had spent his years in a community of only men would think of something like that.

There was a girl I knew, he had replied, a Wildling, and then clammed up when she questioned him further. A lover, she thinks, and is glad that Jon was not always alone.

She is enjoying travelling with him more than with Brienne, which she feels guilty about, but there is something about knowing that this is it, that Jon is her last resort and there is nowhere else she can flee to, that has lent her mood a giddy lightness, a gallows humour.

What will come, will come, she says under her breath like a mantra. Perhaps these are the last few moons of her life, perhaps she will be caught at any moment by the brigands who travel up and down the Kingsroad looking for traitors and criminals like her and Jon, but what can she do about that?

Jon is not as sanguine as her, she knows, he scowls even more the further south they get, his mood darkens. So she tries her best to improve it, to tease him, to take care sewing up the rips in his clothes, to gather herbs to flavour his dinner and cut his beard for him when it grows too long. He submits to her grooming grudgingly, and is enough of a gentleman not to refer to the state of her own grooming in return.

She is so far now from the lady that everyone knew Sansa Stark, or Sansa Hardyng, or even Alayne Stone, to be. Jon is the only one who knows this version of her, the grubby one with greasy plaits and dirty nails, who sprawls on the ground without a care for how elegant she looks, who consumes food the moment it is put into her hands instead of eating it daintily. There is no one to impress here, no one to admonish her for her manners, and there is a freedom about that, even if there are also moments where she would chop off a finger if she could trade it for warmth and fineries, for dresses and cakes and dances.

Jon brings back news and gossip from his forays and as they make they way through the wet Westerlands, winter racing ahead of them, they learn of the tragedy at Baelor's Sept and the coronation of Queen Cersei. This last piece of news frightens her so much it works its way into her dreams, making her wake with nightmares of Cersei stabbing her or clawing at her face, so that Jon has to hold her tightly to soothe her, pat her awkwardly on the back and tell her that her nightmares are just that, even as they both know that any day might bring the Queen's soldiers into their path.

Somewhere along their journey, South has come to mean Dorne, and they have spoken lightly of what they know of that country, as they eat breakfast in the last light of the day, as if they are only idling away the time, and not creating a plan, not pinning their last hopes on it.

"Maybe Ghost will grow a lighter coat there, a sandy one so that he can disguise himself in the desert," she says, as they make their way through the Reach, pushing the horses hard at night across the plains to find shelter each night. It is almost warm enough to forgo their furs now. In Dorne, winter will feel like a balmy spring, and she cannot wait for it.

"We'll find somewhere by the coast," Jon says, the first time he has spoken directly of his plans, "or somewhere sheltered by a river. The desert would burn you to a cinder," he says, waving a hand towards her fair skin. He rarely touches her anymore, unless they are sleeping bundled up together, and even then he tries to keep his distance. He has always run hot so perhaps that is why, or perhaps she really does smell that bad. To be stuck together for so many moons must make him long for his own company and a bed all of his own.

As the peaks of the Dornish marches appear on the horizon, Jon's mood darkens even further.

"I cannot lead us through the marches," he admits one night as they ride their fresh horses to the south of Highgarden. "I do not know the land and its dangers, whether we could find shelter during the day where we would be safe from brigands and thieves. We will find a boat in Old Town, and enter Dorne from the coast."

"We could stay in Old Town itself," she says, "it is big enough to hide us."

"No," he says. "We go to Dorne. There are too many watching eyes in a city like that, too many links to the rest of Westeros."

Sansa is pleased that she will get to see a city for once, instead of waiting for Jon outside its walls but still, Jon makes her wait for him to procure berths on a boat before he lets her come with him into Oldtown. She has washed her hair in a stream in preparation, even though she must cover it with a veil, and scrubbed at her body with water and herbs so that she does not smell like a beggar anymore. Ghost doesn't approve of her new scent, he sniffs at her and whines, and then she realises it is not the herbs he dislikes, but the fact that she no longer smells like Jon.

"He'll be back soon, worrywart," she tells the wolf, and rubs his back.

And as if she has conjured him, Jon appears, carrying with him something she had not even dared to ask for—

"A dress!" she says, clapping her hands as he holds it out to her like it is something dangerous.

"We cannot look conspicuous," he says. "I have told the sailor we are merchants and merchants we must appear."

She smooths a hand down the plain green dress, with its neat stitches and workable fabric, the single row of embroidery around its neck. He has brought her a lighter cloak too, of a darker green with a row of pretty buttons down its front. "They're beautiful," she says, and feels her cheeks hurt with her smiles. Her younger self would have thought these clothes to be dull and terrible, but they are like a necklace of pearls to her now, precious indeed.

She looks up and notices that Jon has changed his clothes too, that he has new leathers, a tunic made of fine linen, and clean breeches and boots. He looks even more handsome.

"I will be fighting off other women with you looking like that, husband," she says, and he scowls and rubs his face.

"And the boat?" she asks.

"Small, serviceable. He is transporting wool to Sunspear, and the only other guests are an aging septa and her servant."

"Sunspear," she says breathlessly, her mind already filling with images of a sandy city with streets full of colour and life, rich wine and warm nights.

"Aye, we'll start our journey in Dorne there."

She fumbles out of her old clothes without bothering to turn her back to him and the moment he realises, he says, "Sansa," and puts his back to her, scratching the back of his flushed neck.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," she says, tugging her dress over her shoulders. Often, he has had to guard her during her brief dips in rivers and lakes, and it is pointless to be embarrassed about it now.

When she turns him bodily around and asks, "what do you think?" pulling her plait over one shoulder, veil in the crook of her arm, ready to put on, he blinks and then looks oddly sad.

"You're beautiful, Sansa."

"Thank you, good Ser," she says, and dips into the first curtsey she has made for half a year.

He holds her hand tightly when they make their way through the city, and then, deciding that this is obviously not good enough, he puts an arm around her shoulder, scowling at anyone who dares to look at her.

She finds the presence of so many people, after so long spent just the two of them, in wild and rugged places, dizzying, and almost frightening, her eyes searching for those who have hunted her, those that wish her ill, and lets her body curve into the shelter of Jon's arm.

The boat smells of sheep, and wisps of wool have escaped to cover almost every surface, making her sneeze her way through the first few days. It is harder to sleep now that they are so close to reaching their destination, and they are unused to sleeping at night anyway, so they lie awake next to each other on the narrow bed, oddly quiet, as if any noise they make might disturb their plans. Ghost is travelling across Dorne by land to meet them, and it feels strange without him there between them.

"I'm worried about him, about Ghost," she murmurs into the darkness of their cabin.

"Don't," Jon says, yawning. "He's survived the far North, he'll be fine."

I'm worried about us, about our new life in Dorne, she thinks, but does not say, turning to hide her face in his shoulder.

But he knows what she's thinking, and he says, "We'll be fine, Sansa," and strokes a warm hand down her back.

*

Sunspear is busy; the sun glancing bright off its pale, sand-smoothed towers and walls; birds wheeling in the blue sky above them; the scent of incense and spiced wine and heat in the air; the people handsome in their scant silks; and the streets heaving with life.

They have arrived on the day of a parade and though Jon is quite adamant that they should wait until tomorrow to venture further than the outskirts of the city, Sansa drags him into the crowd and, fearing he might lose her, he follows, scowling at all the men who notice her comely shape even in the plain dress he gave her to wear.

It was hard enough to live with her beauty when it was just the two of them – to wake with the evening's light glinting in her flame-coloured hair, to see freckles spread across her face the further south they came, to catch glimpses of her naked form when she bathed in rivers or lakes, to experience the full force of her smiles and disapproving pouts, to hear her sing and watch her love on Ghost with her sweet kisses – and now he has to fend off other men, now he has to see his own desire on the faces of others and know himself for who he is - a lecher with a sick heart, a bastard with a bastard's lust.

It came on gradually, his desire for his own sister.

When he first saw her across the courtyard at Castle Black, the day after he returned from the dead, feeling raw and wrenched apart, his heart had almost stopped again. He had thought her lost, they had not yet learnt about the reappearance of Sansa Stark and of her wedding to Harrold Hardyng. How she has survived for so many years he does not know, and the things Brienne told him about her time at the Eyrie—his jaw clenches painfully at just the thought, at what she must have suffered.

Sansa deserves a good man guarding her, an honourable man, and she has put her trust in Jon, who is not an honourable man at all.

Perhaps he came back wrong, he thinks sometimes, perhaps this sickness is something the red priestess gave him. It is true that he is quicker to anger now, that he feels a burning deep inside of him, but that is probably only a natural response to being murdered by your own brothers.

It is more like that this was always inside of him, lurking, waiting for him to be weak, waiting for Sansa to flee to him as her last hope.

He has dreams now in which Ned beats him with his fists for the thoughts he has about Sansa, for the lusts he feels, but even that is not enough to quieten his body, to cool his desires.

He blamed it on his grief for Ygritte at first, and then on the way he and Sansa slept alongside one another, thinking that his body was just confused by the closeness.

And then he blamed himself, for doing the things he did for money in the towns they passed, that it had turned him even wickeder at heart.

He will find a girl here, he thinks, once he has found the two of them a home, a girl with blonde hair or brown hair, one that looks nothing like Sansa, and work this madness out of his mind and his body, while Sansa sleeps safe behind the four walls he has built her.

The crowd squeezes them onwards through the streets as soldiers try to clear a path down the centre for the parade to march through. He holds Sansa's hand tightly, keeps his eye on the grey veil covering her head in front of him.

They should not have come into the city today, crowds are dangerous. Crowds can become a mob so easily, and he can almost taste the danger around them.

He sees a wide alleyway, shaded by a canopy of coloured fabrics, and he fights against the mass of people to reach it, pulling Sansa with him by her waist, almost picking her up.

He leans against the wall when they get there, panting, wiping the sweat from his face, as Sansa pulls her hand out of his damp grip.

"You almost broke my hand," she complains.

He shakes his head angrily, looking up at the sun glowing hot through the red fabric above them. "I told you we should have stayed outside the city today," he says.

A wave of noise begins then, from further up towards the palace.

"What's happening?" Sansa asks, peering out of the alleyway.

"You haven't heard of the Princes' Parade?" a little voice says, and Jon looks down to see a young girl staring up at them. Another child is clambering up the opposite wall, finding a perch on a tall windowsill to watch the crowd.

"No," Sansa says eagerly as Jon tries to motion her to mind their own business.

"It happens every year in Sunspear," the child says, like she still cannot believe that Sansa is ignorant of such a festival.

"Why?" Sansa asks, eyes watching the appearance of a row of horses who are making their way down the street as the people watch and cheer.

The riders on their backs are wearing what Jon presumes to be ceremonial dress, turbans and long waistcoats of orange silks covered with golden suns and spears, the sigil of House Martell.

"It celebrates a horse race that was held thousands of years ago between two rival princes of Dorne," the other child, a boy, says, from his perch. "They had both fallen in love with the same princess and decided to race each other across the desert and let the winner have her hand."

The riders have started to throw things into the crowd: sweets and oranges, small wooden toys, paper garlands and necklaces of beads, handfuls of copper coins that glitter in the sunlight.

"But so lovely was the princess, so desperate were they to win," the child continues, "that as they rode through the city to the start of the race they began to throw away anything that might weigh their horses down - jewellery they wore, pouches of coins in their pockets, golden scarves about their necks, embroidered jerkins, fruits and sweet pastries servants had prepared for their ride back, flagons of wine tied to the horses, even their crowns. When the parade is held now, a dozen crowns woven of golden paper are thrown out ahead of the two princes, and those in the crowd who catch them are made a prince or princess for the day and carried up to the palace to sit at the head table of a great feast."

"Who won, who won the original race?" Sansa asks, as she reaches her hands to catch an orange, and then a necklace, and a coin, her face as gleeful as a child.

Both children look confused for a moment, "no one remembers, their names are lost to time."

"And the princes who march now, who are they?" Sansa asks.

"Why, Prince Oberyn of course!" the boy says, "He used to ride alongside Prince Doran but now it is Prince Quentyn or Trystane who take their father's place."

Jon frowns and tugs Sansa down to whisper in her ear. "You met Prince Oberyn, didn't you? He could recognise you."

Sansa shakes her head, "he will not recognise me like this," she said, holding out her plain dress, waving to her veiled head.

And yet, he was right to be nervous because as Sansa reaches out her hands to catch another orange, it is a crown that is thrown her way instead, and when those in front of them see it in her hands, they pull her forward.

"Oh no," Sansa murmurs, clutching Jon's hand as he tries to drag her back to no avail.

He can only let himself be pulled with her, as Sansa apologises and the crowd cheers excitedly, and then they are at the front of the crowd, paper garlands falling all around them, and a guard carrying a sharp spear is motioning them onwards, his eyes glancing at Jon's tight grip on her hand. "Room for two," the guard says, shrugging, "come, come," and pushes them onto a golden wheelhouse with five others who are also holding crowns, handing them sweets and flagons of wine.

The wheelhouse makes its way up towards the palace, as the crowd outside roars and sings, and Jon curses whatever stupid notion made them come to Dorne in the first place.

Even with her hair hidden, Sansa's beauty is memorable, and Prince Oberyn will know her on sight, and their journey, their escape, will be at an end. Sansa will be swiftly returned to the Vale, tried and found guilty.

Jon has not saved her, he has only brought her to her doom.

Chapter Text

The Princes' Parade has always been Oberyn's favourite Sunspear festival. He loves to ride through the city and see it at its best, sun-drenched streets thronging with crowds cheering and singing, and he likes to watch the faces of the children in the crowd light up when they catch the sweets and oranges thrown to them. Inviting those who have caught the golden crowns to feast with the royal family at the palace is a venerable tradition – Oberyn remembers attending the feast as a child, and then sneaking off with Elia and two of the guests who were of a similar age, running races through the corridors of the palace with them, falling asleep underneath a lemon tree in a shaded courtyard and being woken up by their mother's indulgent censure.

Oberyn's joy today, like every other day, is touched by a note of sadness that Elia is not here to share it with him. He had run from Dorne after her death, as if he could run from every reminder of her, but now that he has killed the Mountain, now that he has avenged her, that wanderlust is soothed, and Oberyn is certain that nothing could encourage him to leave Dorne again. His home is dearer than ever to him, and on a day like today it shines.

He and Ellaria, along with Prince Quentyn – who is lately returned from his failed quest to marry the Targaryen princess, with Princess Arianne having been sent in his stead to curry favour with her – enter the receiving room to welcome in the princes and princesses-for-a-day. The light breeze of the afternoon blows the gauzy golden curtains in from the balcony outside, incense burns on braziers to either side of the arched doorway, and the mosaicked floor glitters in the light.

He smiles as he watches the group enter, nervously glancing around the room, their crowns on their heads or clutched in their hands, but one particular familiar face makes him startle. A lady he never thought he would ever see again.

"Lady Sansa?" he asks in disbelief.

The lady in question flushes and her mouth twists anxiously. "My prince," she says, and curtseys deeply. She opens her mouth as if to say something else but the words do not come.

Oberyn turns to the rest of the room and greets the new royals, congratulating their good fortune, joking with them and putting them at ease. And then he announces that they should follow Prince Quentyn into the next room where refreshments and new clothes for the feast await them.

"Sansa," he says more quietly, once he is finished his speech, aware of how pale she has gone. "If you would remain here with Ellaria and myself for a few moments, we should like to hear how you came to Sunspear. For we were sad to hear of your death a few moons past."

She gasps and covers her mouth with her hand.

The other guests are gone now and the door closed behind them. It is only Oberyn, Ellaria, and Sansa in the room, along with the man at Sansa's elbow who must be her guard at the way he is standing ready to protect her.

He looks strangely familiar, though Oberyn knows not why. He has a northern look about him - dark hair, pale skin - but he is more handsome than any northern man Oberyn has ever met before, with brooding eyes and full, sullen lips. He holds himself like a warrior despite his young age and his hand hovers by his side above the space where the pommel of a sword should be.

"Is this man with you, my lady?" Oberyn asks and sees the tick of her companion's jaw. Oh, he would be fun to spar with, this one, in and out of bed.

"My brother, Jon Snow," Sansa says.

"Jon Snow, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch?" This is stranger and stranger.

"Former Lord Commander," Jon says.

"I thought it was a position one held for life," Oberyn says.

"There were mitigating circumstances, my prince," Jon says uncomfortably.

Well, if those circumstances were the task of saving his sister, then Oberyn cannot begrudge him that. He himself would have broken all the laws of man, likely all the laws of the gods too, to save his own sister.

"Lady Sansa, I want you to know that you are safe here," Oberyn says, noticing the way her body sways as if she might fall over. "We will not hand you over to the Vale, or to the Crown. You may stay here as long as you wish. Our home is your home."

"Why would you do such a thing, after what I did?" she asks, holding her shaking hands in front of her.

"What did you do?" Oberyn says. "They say that you poisoned your husband, is that true?"

She shakes her head.

"I thought not. Littlefinger makes his home in the Vale, does he not? He is a man fond of poisons, I know this."

Some expression he cannot fathom passes across her face.

"I owe you a debt, Lady Sansa, for if I had known about the Lannisters' plans to marry you to Tyrion, if I had known about Littlefinger's own plans to spirit you away to the Vale, I would have stopped them, just as I should have prevented you from being mistreated by Joffrey in front of the court."

She closes her eyes in pain.

"I promised myself I would not see another princess suffer in the Red Keep and I did not keep that promise, to my unending shame and regret. It is a stain on my honour, and the honour of Dorne, and giving you a home here, making sure you live in the comforts you deserve, is the least I can do."

"Oh, Prince Oberyn," she says, tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Do you forgive me, my lady, for failing you?"

"Of course," she says, shaking her head. "I never expected—" she wipes her tears from her face with the backs of her hands. "I would be delighted to be your guest here in Sunspear, it would be like a dream," she says. "I would be honoured and so very grateful."

"You are welcome to our home, just as your sister is, Jon," Ellaria says then, squeezing Oberyn's arm. He has been so entranced with Sansa, by her sorrow, that he has forgotten that she does not travel to them alone.

"Thank you, my lady," Jon says.

"Oh, I am not a lady," Ellaria says with a laugh. "I am a bastard, just like you, a Sand."

Jon flushes slightly, he is as affected by Ellaria as any other man and it warms Oberyn to him. Perhaps Jon could join them both in bed, he muses. Could this boy's northern virtues withstand a dual-pronged seduction? Oberyn has always enjoyed a challenge.

"You are eating that boy up with your eyes like he is a steak," Ellaria whispers in his ear as she passes to the door to call in wine for their guests.

"Please, won't you take a seat and have some wine, I imagine your journey has been very long indeed," Ellaria says when she returns, and Jon and Sansa sit down gingerly on the low couches, looking around them as if they are amazed by the finery of the room.

Sansa has dark shadows under her eyes and she is trying to hide the roughness of her hands in her cloak, tucking her hair into her veil.

"You have had a long journey, my lady?" Oberyn asks softly, passing her a plate of cheese and fruits.

"Yes, my prince," she nods.

"Please, call me Oberyn."

She smiles tremulously. She is even more beautiful than she had been when she lived in King's Landing, more womanly now but still achingly sad. A northern jewel, who has been used ill. Oberyn would treasure her if she let him, he might love her, if she wanted that too.

"You said that you had heard news that Sansa was dead," Jon presses, leaning forward in his seat.

"Yes. That you were caught in the Riverlands and died while being transported back to the Vale," Oberyn relates.

Sansa shivers and Jon reaches over to take her hand.

"Another one of Littlefinger's schemes, no doubt," Oberyn says. "They say that the little lord of the Vale is now betrothed, to some northern girl whose name I forget," he waves his hand and picks up an orange to peel into ripe segments, passing the first to Ellaria who licks the juices from her fingers in a manner thoroughly distracting.

"I'm glad," Sansa says smoothing her hands on her dress. "Robert Arryn is our cousin," she adds.

"Your cousin," Jon corrects.

"Oh, yes," Sansa says and bites her lip.

"Dorne does not have the same attitudes towards bastards as the rest of Westeros, Jon Snow, you will find a warm welcome here," Oberyn says with a smile. He is trying not to flirt with the boy but it is so very hard.

Sansa beams at Jon, she obviously cares for him dearly.

"Come," Oberyn says, after eating the last segment of his orange, "you will want to talk with one another without prying ears. We will leave you now and in a little while, Ellaria will find you something to wear for the feast, Sansa, as my servants will find you something too, Jon. And return your sword to you also."

They thank him and as Oberyn leaves the room with his paramour, he hears Sansa whisper excitedly, "to think we might live in a palace, Jon, a palace—"

*

Sansa is aware that Jon is wary of their new hosts, that he is suspicious of Oberyn's offer of sanctuary here, but then he knows Oberyn only through his reputation as The Red Viper, fearsome warrior and infamous lover.

Sansa knows Oberyn through their scant shared weeks in the Red Keep where she observed from afar two particular moments of kindness that formed a different opinion.

One afternoon when she had been walking in a quiet courtyard, glad of a few hour's repose from the cruel eyes of the other courtiers, there had been a crash from a nearby corridor and when she had peered around a column she had seen a servant surrounded by shattered crockery. Prince Oberyn had been helping the servant pick it up, telling her that he would take the blame, offering her a coin to pay for the damages that might come out of her wages.

And another evening, when Sansa was walking with Shae back from a horrible audience in the Throne Room, they had seen a Lannister guard molest a frightened serving girl at the other end of the corridor, before Prince Oberyn had intervened and slammed the guard by his neck into the wall, threatening him with a smile on his face that made him look all the more dangerous. He had bowed a greeting when they passed, after the guard had scurried away. My lady, he had said to Sansa, and she remembers almost swooning at how handsome and courteous he seemed.

He is just as handsome now, if not more so, with his dark eyes and wicked grin, the casual languidness of the way he holds himself, how he listens so intently when you talk to him. He seduces those around him without even trying, she cannot imagine how overwhelming the full force of his attentions might be. The two of them together, the prince and his paramour, are mesmerizing, she is not sure she has ever met a handsomer couple.

After her audience with them, she was led to a room with a large sunken bath by kind servants who scrubbed her body clean of the grime of travel, paying close attention to her rough hands and poor feet, working oils into her skin to soften it, pouring rose petals and perfumes in the balmy water around her, leaving her to soak for a while alone.

To live in the palace at Sunspear is beyond her wildest dreams of what her future might have looked like after leaving Castle Black.

But learning that she had been reported dead, and seeing Lord Baelish's fingerprints on the whole story, has shaken her.

It was Petyr who had spirited her out of the Eyrie and into the hands of Brienne after the lords of the Vale had arrested her for Harrold's murder. He had told her that this was all he could do for her but she knew that he had let her take the blame to save his own hide when the poison was discovered. One of the two of them had to be named guilty and Lord Baelish had chosen to save himself, sending her out into the world as a traitor and a murderess. It is not thanks to him that she made it to Castle Black, nor to Sunspear, but she knows that he would say it was. Sweetling, she can almost hear him say, it was my plan from the very beginning, I had only your best interests at heart.

She had spent so long in his company, under his thumb, so many years as Alayne. She knows that it was just a mummery, that she was never really a raven-haired bastard, that Petyr was not her father, but he had been the closest thing she had to one for a long time. She had clung to him and had felt torn asunder when she left the Eyrie, knowing that he was no longer there for her to run to, that she could not slip inside his bedroom at night when she was frightened, shake him awake and have him hold her while she slept and keep her safe from nightmares; even as she also hated him, for abandoning her, for sending her off to her doom. He showed who he really was when he let her be accused of her husband's murder and she was wrong for ever trusting him, she was so very stupid.

She should feel ashamed for what she did with him, for allowing herself to be seduced, she should feel wrong, and rotten to the core, and some part of her does. But shame was useless at the time, it did not help her survive when she lost her family, and it will not help her now, she tries to remind herself, what's done is done.

She had tried to live in the way she had been taught was right - to trust in her parents, to take the side of her betrothed, to be dutiful, to believe that everyone was good and would be good to her – and she had lost everything. So she began to follow different rules, ones which Petyr helped her write, which helped her survive. It was only when she finally realised that he was poisoning Robert Arryn that her new convictions trembled, and she made a bargain with him - if he hurt Robert she would not allow him to touch her anymore. Petyr had laughed delightedly when she told him that, had been so pleased that she had turned into a true schemer, and then rewarded her for it by sitting her upon his desk and setting his mouth to her cunt, making her peak three times before he was done.

If Jon knew what she did at the Eyrie, who she was, how she went to Littlefinger's bed willingly – because she was lonely and lost, because some dark part of her liked the obsessive way he cared for – Jon would call her a whore, and he would never look at her kindly again.

She had only slipped up once on their journey south, referring to him idly as Petyr during a rare conversation about politics.

"You and Littlefinger were close," Jon had said, staring at her curiously.

"Lord Baelish was all I had then," she had replied. "He helped me escape from King's Landing, I thought he was protecting me."

Ask me, she had thought, ask me if I lay with him, ask me what depravities we acted out all those years locked away from the world when he had me call him father.

Sansa still has nightmares where her mother admonishes her for her sins, her shame, and tries to scratch her eyes out, or worse, cries like Sansa has broken her heart, has killed her.

She shakes her head and dips under the water, reminding herself that she has left the Vale behind, that Robert Arryn is safe, that though she never loved Harrold she did not murder him either, that no one need ever know the darkness that she allowed herself to fall into up in the tall towers of the Eyrie that touched the clouds, what lonely desperation made her do.

The servants reappear and dry her skin with the softest of linens, spreading all sorts of rich lotions on her body, and brushing perfumes on her neck and in the crooks of her elbows and knees, working oils through her hair so gently that she can barely feel the tug of the combs untangling all the knots. She lets their ministrations soothe her worries and bring her back to the here and now, where she is safe, where a wondrous future awaits her.

Ellaria finds her wrapped up in a silken robe, feeling languorous and indulged, her body humming with the tender care of so many careful hands.

"You look well, my lady," Ellaria says with a pleased smile. "Do you feel revived?"

"Oh, yes," Sansa says, "and please, call me Sansa."

"Then you must call me Ellaria," she says and takes Sansa's arm, leading her to another room where chests of clothes await.

"I'm afraid that it will take a few days for clothes to be made for you, but until then you are welcome to any of mine, or my daughters. You will meet them tonight, Oberyn's Sand Snakes, they are very eager to make your acquaintance."

"Oh, I do not need my own clothes—" Sansa says as Ellaria holds up a few silken dresses in front of her, looking thoughtful. "And I should very much like to meet them too."

She will have to get used to a whole new world here, learn the customs of the palace and of Dorne, all the names and personalities of its inhabitants, and what is expected of her, how she might be able to help in some small way to repay the kindness of the Martells.

"Did someone explain the story of the Princes' Parade to you?" Ellaria asks, picking up another dress and fluffing out its skirts.

"Yes, it is a wonder I have never heard tell of it, it is a romantic tale indeed."

"The parade of the two princes who rode a race for the hand of their beloved? This story has a few other variations too," Ellaria says, bringing a dress to hold against Sansa, who she has manoeuvred in front of a long mirror.

It has been so long since she has been touched by another woman, or been close to someone who smells of perfume and soft things, and the attentions of Ellaria added to those of her servants have her feeling almost overwhelmed.

"Some say that it was not two princes that raced," Ellaria says, "but two princesses running away together. That they were lovers."

The way that Ellaria says that word makes Sansa blush. Ellaria strokes Sansa's hair back from her face and looks over her shoulder into the mirror, meeting her eyes. "I prefer this story," Ellaria says conspiratorially, "but do not tell Oberyn that."

She winks and Sansa smiles.

"The Dornish are not so priggish as the rest of Westeros about lovers of the same sex," Ellaria continues. "Lovers of all kinds are welcome here, and women are free to love who we wish." She strokes a finger down Sansa's cheek and then steps back, helping Sansa remove her robe and dressing her in the scant Dornish underclothes and the long silken gown of purple she has chosen for her, with its bell sleeves and low back, fitting a glittering girdle around her hips.

Sansa has lain with a woman before, during her time at the Vale, Myranda Royce, and when she looks back at her life before then, there were girls she would have liked to kiss if she had had the chance. Margaery had said that it was a common thing, for girls to like girls, and so did Petyr, who delighted in telling her all about the tricks women might use with men and women.

Sansa is no longer a maiden who needs to stay chaste to make match. Who would marry a woman who murdered her second husband, after refusing to lay with her first, anyway? She is a widow now, and it is unlikely she will ever marry again, why should she not find some pleasure here in Dorne, why should she not take lovers that she chooses for herself, she thinks, staring into the mirror, judging herself to still be beautiful, if not quite as radiant as she was when she was young and had not been mistreated.

To be touched, to feel pleasure, yes, she would like this very much. Although if she does have trysts, she must do her best not to let Jon know about them, he is a northerner through and through and he would not understand southron customs, he would judge her ill.

"I am happy to be in Dorne," Sansa says, as she hears the echo of pleasant singing from somewhere else in the palace, as she smooths a hand down the exquisite fabric of her dress. "This is like a dream standing here, wearing this dress, being welcomed by you and Prince Oberyn," she smiles and feels a giddy burst of excitement in her chest. "Oh, Ellaria," she says, turning around to clutch her hands, "thank you."

"It is nothing, dear one," Ellaria says, kissing her cheek, "Oberyn and I are glad to see you happy."

*

Jon had been led to a bath of his own by a handful of servants who he waved away when they offered to bathe him. He has two working hands, he can very well wash himself, and besides, he does not want them to see his scars when he takes off his tunic and have them stare and gossip.

Unlike Sansa, Jon is unused to such luxury as is found here in the palace at Sunspear, and he did his best not gawp like a boy when they were led through its gates. This is not the future he had planned for the two of them. He had planned a plain, rugged, life in a small house by the coast, where he would work the land or sell his sword for a neighbouring lord, help Sansa in the kitchen gardens behind their house, work hard to provide her everything she might need.

But here he is now, a guest in someone else's home, and here Prince Oberyn is with his gold and jewels and samite clothes, with all the fine things that Sansa desires so much though she tries admirably to hide it. She liked pretty things when she was a child too, and he is glad that she has not changed so much to be above that. If Jon is truthful with himself, he has always liked the idea of women wearing beautiful things - silk dresses and jewels, their skin soft and perfumed - but what man does not, he wonders. He used to imagine what Ygritte would look like wearing a fine southron dress, even as he loved her just as she was, musky-smelling furs and all.

He scrubs his body hard in the hot bath, turning his skin red with the effort. But no bath can wash him clean of the things he has done, of the thoughts he has had, of the rotten wickedness at his heart. At least he has saved Sansa, he thinks, he has brought her here to safety, almost miraculously so, he has brought her here to the kind of luxury she should have, and kept her none the wiser as to his true self. Any amount of shame he feels now would be worth it for her to remain unblemished by their journey, by the things he did.

He does not trust Oberyn – the way he looks at Sansa, the way he looks at Jon. The Dornish take lovers of both sexes, and Oberyn looked at Jon like he desired him. Can he tell that Jon has lain with men, that he spent moons sharing a bed with Satin, that he has sold his mouth and his hand, and his body sometimes too, on their journey south, that sometimes Jon had even liked it, being used roughly by other men, sometimes it was not just something to endure? No, there is no way Oberyn can tell that just by looking at him, Jon is sure. He must simply flirt with all men thus.

Sansa has a role waiting for her here in the Dornish court, she can use all her ladylike skills and enjoy the pleasant comforts their surroundings bring - the rich food, the beautiful dresses, the feasts and dances and songs, the balmy weather, and all the fine threads she may use to practice her embroidery. But what will Jon do here? Will the prince and his paramour find him superfluous soon enough and send him on his way, should Jon plan for it, think on where and what he might do now that Sansa is safe? Should he remove himself from her company, he who dishonours her with his thoughts; can he bear to be parted from the last member of his family, from a girl he loves so dearly?

He will offer the prince his sword, he decides, perhaps he might become a royal guard, or help to train youths just as he trained those at Castle Black. A sunny training ground with servants carrying wine and refreshments, with warm baths to soak weary muscles afterwards, will certainly be a welcome change from cold, wet gravel and chilly bedchambers with their hard beds and icy stone floors.

He dries himself off with linens, dressing himself in the clothes provided for him because he does not wish to offend - a fine linen tunic whose laces he ties tightly together, not wanting to bear his chest like Oberyn does, loose breeches of a dark red that are more comfortable than any he has worn before, and a surcoat in a pale orange - and peers at himself in the mirror, fearing that he looks foolish, pulling his hair back and tying it with awkward hands. The men of the Night's Watch would jeer at him to see him dressed so, in southron finery, smelling of perfumed bath water, but he should like to see them try and refuse such luxuries when offered to them, such comforts. He will be sleeping in a feather bed tonight with silken sheets in a room with a warm breeze through its open window, and he is not so proud as to pretend he is not looking forward to it.

He steps out into the hallway and is led by yet more servants to meet with Sansa, who is waiting for him in a garden scented by lemon trees, and lit by lanterns that spread their light in dizzying patterns.

She turns when she hears his footsteps and he startles at the vision she makes. Her dress is made of some feather-light purple silk, with long, trailing sleeves and a deep dip at her neckline, revealing the inner curves of her teats. And when she wraps her arms around him a gleeful hug his hands meet the bare skin of her back, hidden by the soft curtain of her hair, and he is surrounded by a cloud of her sweet perfume, and he feels his body stir and he steps back, gritting his teeth and adjusting his belt.

"You look beautiful, Sansa," he says gruffly after she holds open her hands as if to ask, what do you think?

"You look handsome too, who knew such a fine gentleman lay hidden under all those northern leathers," she teases.

Jon gives her his arm and they make their way to the great hall where the feast is being held, guided by the smell of spiced food and incense, the sound of laughter and music.

Sansa gasps with delight when they enter the room and she sees its finery - the glittering golden ceiling reflecting the light of many candles, the gauzy curtains of gold and red and orange draped across the colonnaded walls, the richly worked carpets on the floor, and the table laden with all manner of foods in gilded bowls and platters, metalworked cups waiting for thick spiced wine to be poured. The beautiful people attending the feast are just as spectacular to look at, in their colourful silks and embroidered fabrics; they bare their brown shoulders and arms, their backs and large swathes of their chests, the women flashing a calf or a thigh in slits in their skirts.

Jon and Sansa are seated at the head table, next to one another, and close to Ellaria and Oberyn and the women of varying ages who must be his daughters for he can see Oberyn's proud mien in their looks. Oberyn introduces them, and Jon reminds himself that he has faced hordes of the dead, and a braying room of Night's Watch brothers arguing with his decisions, he should not be intimidated by these fearsome women who have the bearing of warriors and look at him as if he is their prey.

"I think they like you," Sansa murmurs later, as servants bring them more rich wine that is beginning to make Jon feel lightheaded after so many years of ale.

"Will we see you on the training ground, Lord Commander?" Obara calls across the table. "I should like to see you fight with a spear."

"I have little skill with a spear, I am afraid. Us northerners find swords better suited to our battles," he replies.

"Don't worry, I can teach you how to handle a spear," Obara says, her voice thick with innuendo.

Jon looks across at Oberyn but he does not seem to be concerned about his daughters flirting with his guest. Still, Jon would truly have to be at spearpoint to ever lay with the daughter of his host, that way lies only dismemberment and death.

He knows how to live in a community of men - how to deal with the squabbles and power-plays and bruised masculine prides - but living amongst mixed company, here where his bastardy does not make him beneath many people's notice, as it did at Winterfell, will take some adjustments, and have its own concealed dangers.

The crowd in the room stand up to greet the entrance of Prince Doran, Prince Quentyn, and the princesses and princes-for-a-day who join them, giggling and clutching the golden crowns still on their heads. There are four adults, six youths, and two small children holding one another's hands. Ellaria is the one to lead those two to the places in between her and Tyene, stacking cushions up on their seats so that they can reach the food on the table, bending low to hear the excited words they are saying. Ellaria is obviously a kind mother, and Jon feels a pang of sadness when he sees how indulgently she treats these child guests.

Jon is surprised to see Doran wheeled into the room in a chair but despite the prince's physical frailty, he has a glint of Oberyn's same fierceness in his eyes, and Jon knows instantly that this is not a man to underestimate.

Doran welcomes his guests, and names Sansa and Jon among them, drawing curious eyes from the rest of the room. Courtiers of both sexes have been watching Sansa since she arrived, her hair and pale skin a novelty here amongst the darkly handsome people of Dorne. Jon feels his teeth grit at the thought of having to fend them all off from her. They might not understand that Sansa is a northern girl with northern virtues; that though she has been treated ill by men, she is still innately pure and good, and deserves to be cherished by an honourable man, not used and discarded for an evening's fun.

Jon would cherish her, if he were not her brother, if his love was not the very thing that would dishonour her.

He tries to concentrate on the food, the wine, on remembering long-forgotten table manners, and not think about the feeling of Sansa sitting next to him, her bare arm that brushes against his when she reaches for her cup, the way strands of her hair lift in the slight breeze and tickle his neck.

After the feasters have had sweet pastries and ripe fruits, dancing music begins, with drums being brought out and the musicians, who have been playing light songs on harps and fiddles, standing up in their seats to show off their skills.

Dornish dancing is a little different to the dancing he remembers at Winterfell, he notes idly, his head still swimming from too much wine.

"May I have this dance, my lady," Oberyn says to Sansa, holding out a hand to her.

"I do not know any Dornish dances," Sansa says, but still takes his hand, smiling delightedly.

"I am a very good teacher, my lady," Oberyn says in his rumbling voice, and Jon tries not to scowl as the prince leads Sansa out onto the floor.

They make a handsome couple, his dark skin against her pale, his smooth steps and the elegant way she moves her arms. Sansa is tall, as tall as Jon, but Oberyn is taller. His arm is firm about her waist, he moves her body with ease, and she lets herself be led, smiling up at him, laughing at whatever he is whispering to her. Oberyn is devouring her with his eyes, turning her about the room, showing her off to the rest of the court.

Jon feels a deep burn of jealousy in his gut.

"A dance, Lord Commander?" Tyene asks him. Her dresses cover more of her skin than her other sisters but it does little to dim her beauty.

"I would be a poor dance partner, I'm afraid," he says, trying to smile politely. "I have no skill on the dance-floor and my legs are weary from the journey."

"Perhaps another time then, Jon," she says, resting a hand on his shoulder, gazing down at him with her startling blue eyes.

Sansa dances with several other Dornish lords before she returns to the table for more wine and the lemon cakes she loves.

"You don't want to dance, Jon?" she asks. Her skin is flushed with exertion, she looks radiant and beautiful.

"My skills have not improved since our childhood lessons."

"You mean you did not practice with the Night's Watch at the Wall?" she teases, and he smiles more at the delight on her face than her poor joke.

"Will you dance with me here, Jon, to celebrate our good fortune? A simple dance, like the ones at Winterfell, now while the floor is quiet."

How can he refuse her? He lets himself be pulled up from his seat as if in a daze, the drums like his own heartbeat. He takes her hand and she puts his other arm around her waist and he begins to step haltingly across the floor, turning her this way and that, not caring one fig that he must look a fool next to so many accomplished dancers when Sansa is beaming up at him, when her hand rests in his.

"Oberyn's daughters have been paying you flattering attention tonight, they are beautiful, are they not?" she says.

"Aye, and dangerous."

She laughs. "But it is true what they say about Dornish customs being different, you might find a lover here, Jon-"

"Sansa," he says.

"I do not want you to be alone, when you do not have to be. You are no longer a member of the Night's Watch, you might have a lover, or a wife, now. A family."

How can he tell her that the lover, the wife, he so longs for is already his family and thus can never marry him? That every other woman would be a poor copy to her.

"Aye, and you might find a husband," he says, hating himself for putting that thought in her mind.

"Who would marry a murderess?" she says, and then steps out and twirls in front of him as he tries to keep hold of her, her hair a curtain of flame in the air. She steps closer and he smooths a hand around her back, holding her tightly. "I will have no husband, not again. Two is enough for a lifetime," she says.

"You were born to be a mother, Sansa," he says softly.

"Many things have changed since we were children. We are not who were then," she says sadly.

"If you find a man who would cherish you, a man who you could love, I will do everything in my power to make that man marry you. I will build you a keep for your new family if I cannot win you one through battle, and when all the wars to come are over, I will help you take back Winterfell should you wish it," he vows, feeling heady with the wine, the incense, the feel of her in his arms.

"Oh, Jon, you are already my hero for bringing me here, I need no more than this."

The dance is at an end, and he hands Sansa over to Quentyn, an unmarried prince of her own age, with a sweet smile and gentle hands.

Jon slips back to the table and downs the last of his cup, his eyes caught by a couple kissing passionately against the wall in plain sight, their hands roaming wildly.

He leaves for the balcony, brushing past the silk curtains and breathing in the scented air of Sunspear, staring out across the city as he flexes his hands on the railing, brooding on the future.

Chapter Text

Oberyn heard that Jon had found his way to the training grounds on his first morning at Sunspear, and that within hours he had offered to help some of the recruits with their sword training.

"It was not arrogance that made him offer," Ser Daemon Sand, Oberyn's good friend since childhood, and onetime lover, says over breakfast a few days later. "He simply wants to help, to be useful. And he is a good teacher, firm but fair, kind too. It is good for the green youngsters to experience someone who has trained and fought elsewhere from Dorne."

"And how is he with the handling of swords?" Oberyn asks.

Daemon rolls his eyes. "I do not know how his skills fare in that arena, or if he ever takes men to bed–"

"He does," Oberyn asserts confidently.

Daemon shrugs, "-but on the training ground, yes, he is good, very good."

He scratches his head and Oberyn narrows his eyes. "He bested you? The Bastard of Godsgrace?" Oberyn says delightedly.

Daemon flexes his hands on the table between them. "He may have won two or three bouts."

"Out of how many?"

"...three."

Oberyn laughs delightedly. "I should like to see this. I wonder how he would fare against a spear."

"As would I," Daemon says.

Oberyn saunters down to the training ground a few hours later, and selects his favourite blunt training spear from the armoury.

"Good morrow, Jon," he calls out as he sees the man in question performing drills against a wooden target.

Jon turns around. His curls are coming loose from his bun and his cheeks are ruddy with exertion. He is wearing thin Dornish leathers over his tunic, and plain arm bracers.

"Daemon tells me that you are one of the greatest swordsmen he has ever seen."

Jon huffs and wipes the sweat from his face. "Ser Daemon tells tale tales."

"I do not think so. I myself have no great skill with a sword. Daggers, whips and spears are my weapons of choice. What do you think, sword against spear?" he asks, and tugs off his own leather jerkin, leaving him in only his tunic and arm bracers.

Jon raises his eyebrow.

"A gentlemanly fight, no live steel, no need for padded leathers."

Jon fumbles off his leathers, shaking his head. "If this is your way of saying that you are displeased with me as a guest-" he grumbles, the side of his mouth twisting into a smile.

"Is that a smile, Jon?" Oberyn teases, twirling his spear around his hands, and moving to the middle of the field. "I thought you were a glum fellow, I did not know that you were only happy with a sword in your hand."

"I am happy training, less happy fighting and killing," Jon admits.

"That is wise," Oberyn says as Jon takes his place opposite him, looking light on his feet as the best warriors are.

Jon makes the first thrust, easily batted aside by Oberyn's spear. Then he feints, and slashes, hitting wood against wood, and Oberyn ducks and whirls, almost hitting Jon's leg before the younger man blocks it. They thrust and parry and hit, carving their weapons through the air, circling one another, their chests heaving and tunics drenched with sweat, the both of them enjoying the challenge of being matched against someone of the same skill.

They are breathing heavily, their legs beginning to tire, when Oberyn succeeds in knocking Jon's sword out of his hand and then Jon – in a movement so quick Oberyn can hardly blink – kicks Oberyn in the thigh and bats his spear out of his own hands.

"You are not afraid to fight dirty, this is good," Oberyn says and then pushes Jon onto the ground, pinning down his legs with Oberyn's own.

Jon brings his forearm up to press against Oberyn's neck, and they scuffle with one another, twisting their limbs, grabbing for legs and arms and hands.

"Do you like to wrestle, Jon?" Oberyn gasps, feeling the stir of Jon's cock against his thigh.

"Not particularly," Jon spits out, grappling with him.

A lie of course. Oberyn doubts there is any man who does not like to wrestle, to feel another body against yours, to battle for dominance.

"Do you know that the story of the Princes' Parade has many origins?" Oberyn says.

Jon looks confused, and Oberyn locks his legs around Jon's hips, turning him on his back with a heavy thump.

"Some say that the two riders were not racing to win the hand of their beloved, but-" Oberyn says, as Jon bucks his hips and flushes when he feels Oberyn's cock against his, "–to decide who would top that evening in bed-"

Jon squirms and flips Oberyn on his back and then twists him onto his front as Oberyn laughs, "-who would be in charge," Oberyn continues, voice muffled by the ground, and then he kicks his legs out and twists and they lock their arms around each other's shoulders as Jon grunts and tries to flip Oberyn again and then Oberyn gets him in a headlock that Jon ducks out of and pushes him away, the both of them falling on their backs as Oberyn stretches out his arms, panting with a wide smile.

"Do you like this version of the tale, Jon?" he asks but Jon only grunts angrily and gets up, brushing the sand from himself, turning his arm to look at the red mark where Oberyn had twisted his grip.

“Ellaria and I are to visit my favourite brothel tonight, would you join us?” Oberyn asks, standing up himself and walking across to gulp down a bladder of water and throw another to Jon who catches it easily.

“I am not in the habit of visiting brothels,” Jon says.

“Ah, but you are in Dorne now. I hope you change your mind sometime, I fear I would be a poor guest if I did not find you a lover to your taste - whether it be a woman, a man, or both.”

Jon grits his teeth and walk away.

"A good fight!" Oberyn calls after him. "We shall have to do this again!" and then he breathes a laugh and picks up his spear.

Next time he will make sure to share more of his spear jokes, because riling Jon up is an entertaining sport. These repressed northerners and their inability to admit to what they want – Oberyn shakes his head and makes his way to the baths.

At least Jon's sister seems more enlightened, and Oberyn's face softens as he thinks of sweet Sansa, of the glances she has been giving him, and of the way she watches Ellaria with desire writ plain on her face.

*

Ten days after she arrives in Sunspear, Sansa wakes up strangely warm, as if summer has returned, and with a familiar weight lying over her legs that makes her smile and stretch out her hand to feel the fluffy sides of a white direwolf.

"Ghost!" she says, sitting bolt upright as the beast pants up at her, looking pleased and more than a little dusty from his adventures.

She rubs his sides and coos at him, tells him how she has missed him, and what a good wolf he is. Jon hates it when she is soppy with his wolf but Ghost only preens under her attention.

"You need a bath, boy," she says, and then gets up from bed and finds a robe to cover herself, leading him along the corridor to the tiled room with its large sunken bath. In the evenings, furnaces are lit to turn the piped water warm, but in the mornings the water is lukewarm and refreshing. The wolf is happy to be bathed, which is just as well for Sansa does not like her chances of wrestling a direwolf into the water unwillingly.

Once he is clean, they sit out on the balcony off her room in the morning sun, as Sansa eats a blood orange she had brought back from dinner last night.

"We should go and see your master, boy, he has missed you," she says, opening the door to her room for Ghost to trot through, leading her towards Jon's room at the end of the corridor as if he already knows where it is.

The wolf nudges open the door as Sansa turns the handle, slipping inside quietly. Jon is still asleep, lying on his back in the middle of the canopied bed, silk sheets to his waist and his scars bared to the air. He is breathing gently but his face is frowning softly. Even in sleep, smiles are hard to come by for her brother.

Ghost jumps up on the bed gently, lying at his masters feet and Sansa flops on the sheets next to Jon, staring at him in the light that makes its way through the slatted shutters of his room.

She has missed sharing his bed, even as she does not miss the discomfort of sleeping on hard land, or on the sharp floor of a forest, or in the narrow berth of a boat. It takes her longer to sleep than it should now in such comfort and she finds herself reaching out her hand in the morning and being disappointed when she finds empty space beside her in bed.

It is strange to think how close she and Jon have become, after a childhood of keeping a polite distance from one another. Robb would be happy to see how close they are now, how fondly she feels towards his favourite brother, and the thought brings a pang to her chest that has her reaching to touch Jon's soft curls.

People at Winterfell used to call him pretty, because of his curls and his pout, the thick brush of his eyelashes, but he is more handsome than pretty now, his face weathered and his body scarred. She moves her hand to brush her fingertips against the deep gouge in his chest above where his heart beats, her body shivering at the thought of his resurrection.

His body flinches slightly at her touch, and he hums and smiles, his eyes still closed, bringing a hot hand to rest over hers. "Sansa," he murmurs happily. Then his body jolts and he opens his eyes to see her lying on her side next to him and he coughs and looks awkward, bringing his knees up, and then startling again to see the bulk of Ghost at his feet.

"What's going on?" he asks sleepily. "Are you alright?" He frowns and scrubs his face, pulling the sheets up around him.

"We're fine. Ghost just wanted to say hello."

"Hello," he says and his grumpiness makes her laugh.

"I'll leave you to sleep," she says and pats his shoulder.

"Come on Ghost, let's go and find some breakfast."

"Bored of me so soon, boy?" Jon murmurs, turning on his side to watch them leave.

When they reenter the corridor, there is a servant there who shrieks, "Lady Sansa!" staring fearfully at the wolf, which brings the running footsteps of Ser Daemon Sand, one of Oberyn's good friends who she has spoken to several times at dinner.

Daemon has drawn his sword and aims it at Ghost, while the beast lazily bares his teeth.

"I'm well, Ser Daemon. This is Ghost, Jon's direwolf, he's perfectly friendly."

Daemon looks wary but sheaths his sword.

"I'm sorry if I gave you a fright," she tells the servant, who is fanning a hand in front of her face.

"How did he get into the palace without being seen?" Daemon asks as Ghost yawns.

"I don't know. He appeared in my rooms this morning. He must have climbed a balcony somewhere."

"Hmm," Daemon says, frowning. "The palace should check its defences."

Ghost nudges up against Sansa and she bends down to pet his head.

Daemon laughs. "I see you have him under your thumb just like his master."

"He's less grumpy than Jon," she remarks, thinking of the sullen man she has just left in bed.

"But just as fearsome, no doubt," Daemon says, when Ghost growls silently at him after he shifts nearer towards Sansa.

"Everything alright?" Jon asks, opening the door dressed hastily in his tunic and loose breeches. "I heard shouting."

"We were welcoming your wolf, Jon," Daemon says and Jon looks at Ghost long-sufferingly.

Oberyn is delighted to meet Ghost, and so is Ellaria and the Sand Snakes. Ghost seems to feel comfortable with Oberyn and his family and with Ellaria especially, in front of whom he flops on his side to be rubbed by her hands. Jon looks a bit putout by Ghost's new favourites, but then there seems to be an odd tension between Jon and Oberyn lately that Sansa does not understand. Jon tells her that it is simply because they spar on the training grounds together, that they are finding their footing as opponents.

"We have never seen a direwolf in Dorne, though we have our own native wolves out in the desert," Oberyn says at dinner one night, staring at Ghost who is playing with two of his younger daughters out on the balcony. "Will he not be too warm here?"

"He's growing a thinner coat," Jon says from across the table.

"Still," Oberyn muses, "Sunspear is too cramped for a magnificent beast like that. What do you think to a trip to the Water Gardens, Jon, Sansa?"

"Oh, that would be wonderful," Sansa says delightedly.

"And you, Jon?"

"I should like to see more of Dorne," he replies diplomatically.

"Excellent," Oberyn claps his hands together. "We shall leave tomorrow. It will still be warm enough to spend our days bathing in its many pools."

They set out before dawn, swaddling themselves in scarves against the slight chill, clattering on gorgeous Dornish sand steeds through the streets of the city before they reach the coastal road. They ride for three hours, the sun sparkling to their right as Ghost lopes ahead, hunting desert hares in the brush, scrambling over the cliff-side rocks.

The ocean breeze is salty-sweet and Sansa cannot keep the smile from her face as her hair streams behind her and her eyes squint against the morning's bright light. Jon looks happier to be moving too, pleased by the quality of his mount and eager to race against Oberyn and Daemon on the flat passes.

They stop in the shade of a palm grove to stretch their legs and eat figs and cheeses, gulping down water from a sparkling stream. Two hours more riding, and the Water Gardens appear - a palace of pale pink marble and smooth sandstone which they enter through a large decorative archway. They halt their horses in a courtyard, all but Sansa jumping easily down from their mounts, but it has been a few moons since she last rode and her legs are tight with it. Oberyn comes across to help her dismount, holding her by the waist, and her body drags against his on the way down, making her cheeks heat with the feel of his firm muscles, the hot smell of him. 

"There you are," he murmurs and squeezes her waist, looking at her hotly as her belly flutters.

He offers her his arm and leads her onwards, the rest of their party - Ellaria, Daemon, Jon, and one of Ellaria's handmaids whose sister is fostering here, following behind.

They walk through a gallery of fluted pillars where palm trees alternate with columns, and pass underneath a triple archway, lined with mosaicked stones, to reach the terraces looking over the many pools and the soft beach itself in front of the ocean.

There are a handful of youngsters already in the pools, some of the population of children, noble and poor alike, who foster here, and canopied tents with the midday meal arranged on tables, with mounds of fruits and large jugs of sweet lemon water and watered-down wines.

"Do you like it?" Oberyn asks, shifting a little closer to Sansa as Ghost comes barrelling past them and then heads down to jump into the first pool, causing delighted screams from the children nearest to him.

"Ghost does," Sansa laughs. "It's beautiful, Oberyn, a paradise, thank you for bringing us here."

"You're welcome, Sansa," he says, bringing up her hand to kiss the back of it, his eyes sparkling.

They take their midday meal and watch the water shine off the fountains and the pools, and then Ellaria leads Sansa to the beach where they stroll along, and dip their feet in the shallow waves of the ocean. When they come back to the terrace, Jon has found a long pool empty of other swimmers and is making his way up and down, his legs kicking a spray from the water. He pulls himself out of the pool when he sees Sansa and stands there dripping in sodden breeches.

"A good swim?" Ellaria drawls, and Jon rubs his heaving chest and nods. "This is supposed to be a place for relaxation, but I see you have the same aversion to idleness as Daemon."

Jon shrugs. "I am not used to resting, it's true. To rest at the Wall or in the far North meant that you'd starve and die."

"There's not much chance of that here," Ellaria teases, motioning to the table laden with afternoon pastries and sweet figs.

She leaves them to find Oberyn, and Sansa sits with Jon on a shaded terrace out of the sun.

"You look happy, Sansa," he says.

"And you look less brooding."

"I'm still as glum as ever, don't worry," he replies with one of his wry smiles.

"Are you warming to Prince Oberyn? He's not quite the Red Viper of his reputation, is he."

Jon crosses his arms. "I wouldn't say that I've warmed to him, I know him better now, I suppose. He's not bothering you, is he?" he asks suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"Flirting, making advances."

She shrugs. "He flirts with everyone." Should she tell Jon that she would be receptive to such an advance from Oberyn? The whole topic of sex and relationships feels too awkward to speak of with her brother. "I trust him, and Ellaria. They are good people, kind, loving. We were lucky to find ourselves under their care."

"It is an adjustment for me, this new life of ours," Jon admits.

"I know, Jon," Sansa says, resting a hand on his arm. "But if you are not happy, we do not have to stay–"

"Don't be ridiculous," he huffs. "Why would I not be happy - the sun," he waves his hand, "the food, the wine, the warm weather, the palaces, the company," he squeezes Sansa's hand. But why is it that she can hear that he is lying. Why do these things not make him happy? Perhaps he is lonely, or still grieving for his lost love.

"You would be happier if you found a lover," she says.

"Sansa," he admonishes. "Look to your own courtships, don't worry about mine."

"Fine," she says, without any anger. "I'm going for a swim now."

"Be careful," he calls as she walks away.

"I'll do my best not to drown in a foot of water," she says, untying the silken veil that covers her shoulders and neck.

She makes her way to a shallow pool with a gorgeous fountain in the shape of a dolphin, and slips into its waters, feeling her thin dress drift away from her limbs. She falls onto her back to float with a stifled giggle. Paradise indeed, she thinks.

That evening, their group takes their dinner in the private royal rooms, eating spiced meats that make her eyes water, sharp cheeses, crisp salads, and drinking many cups of wine, as the sound of a harp drifts its way across from the pools where a musician plays for the children.

Jon heads to sleep early, after many yawns, but Sansa still feels wide awake, her body humming with anticipation.

Oberyn had shown her the private pool in the small courtyard off their rooms earlier, noting the comfortable couches surrounding it, themselves surrounded by gauzy curtains offering the barest wisp of privacy. There was an unspoken invitation in Oberyn's words and manner, and throughout dinner she had been lost in a daydream of what was to come, which made her slow to answer questions and had Jon looking at her strangely.

"Ellaria and I were thinking of a gentle swim now, should you like to join us?" Oberyn asks over the rim of his wine cup.

"I should like that very much," she says, nodding and biting her lip.

Ellaria smiles warmly and leads her by the hand to the courtyard which is lit by rows of candles, the light bouncing off the water and the golden tiles on the walls.

Sansa is trembling, but not with fear. She feels shy as she watches Ellaria slip into the water, her eyes dark, her thin dress plastering to her firm breasts. Oberyn walks across to Sansa, and cups the back of her head.

"May I kiss you?" he asks and she nods and lifts her face to his.

His lips are firm, his hands hold her close and she finds herself making the squeak of a pleased sound into his mouth. He draws back, smirking, and then strips off his tunic and breeches, jumping into the pool in only his smallclothes. He holds out a hand to her and she takes it, jumping in next to him, the water drenching her. He laughs and brushes her hair out of her face, kissing her again, pulling her towards him.

Ellaria swims up next to them, stroking her hand down Sansa's back, moving to kiss her neck. Sansa is feeling overwhelmed already. She reaches for Ellaria and kisses her, her lips are soft and her tongue sweeps across hers. Oberyn brings his hands up to her breasts, cupping them, pinching the nipples softly, as Ellaria shifts behind her, her hands working at the ties of Sansa's dress. Sansa raises her arms and the both of them tug her dress off her, throwing it in a sodden heap by the side of the pool. She shivers, bared to the water, and puts her arms around Oberyn as he sucks at her neck, one hand roaming her hips, the other cupping Ellaria through her smallclothes.

"The couch," Ellaria murmurs, and leans forward to kiss Oberyn.

Oberyn clambers out of the pool and tugs down his smallclothes, and Sansa blushes at the size of his manhood, and then laughs when Oberyn winks at her. He saunters across to the nearest couch and lays on his side, his brown limbs glinting with water droplets. Ellaria pulls Sansa up the steps of the pool and as the wind chills her skin she runs over to the couch and into Oberyn's arms.

"Are you cold?" he murmurs, laying her out on her back as Ellaria props herself on her elbow beside her.

Sansa shakes her head and clenches her hands into the silk cushions underneath her, curling her toes in the air when Oberyn leans over her to suck at her nipples, while Ellaria laves her neck with her tongue. Then he makes his way down her body, pulling down her smallclothes and discarding them to one side, widening her legs around his shoulders, and looking up at her wickedly, before he sets his mouth to her cunt, making Sansa whine.

Ellaria puts her mouth to Sansa's breasts, and places one of her hands on Oberyn's head, guiding him, as Sansa's thighs twitch with pleasure and her back arches with her first trembling peak. Oberyn stays there, sucking and licking, bringing her to another peak that makes her wail, and then he props himself up on his hands above her, panting proudly, his lips plumped by his efforts.

Sansa turns to Ellaria and slips her hand between the older woman's thighs, finding her wet and warm, and she works her fingers and thumb deftly. Oberyn groans at the sight of them together and bites at Ellaria's hipbones, holding her down as she squirms with Sansa's touch.

After she has peaked, Ellaria moves Oberyn onto his back and helps Sansa climb over him, her legs shaking. Sansa bites her lip and stares down at him, and he strokes his hands up and down her thighs.

"You're beautiful, Sansa," he murmurs and tweaks her nipple with his fingers and she shivers and smiles. She knows that it is vain but she does so like to be looked at, to be told that she is attractive.

Sansa lifts her hips up and Ellaria helps her notch Oberyn's manhood in place, the stretch as she sinks down making her gasp and her nails dig into his chest. She rides him slowly, watching him fall apart underneath her, as Ellaria whispers lewd words and touches herself, distracting Oberyn with drugging kisses. When he comes, he clutches Sansa tightly by the hips and she hopes that he might leave bruises, and that tomorrow she might see the marks of his fingertips and know that this was not just some wonderful dream.

It is late indeed by the time Sansa makes her way back to the bedchamber allocated to her, not wanting to risk being discovered by Jon sleeping in a pile with Oberyn and Ellaria the next morning. Her body is still humming, her muscles pleasantly sore as she drifts into a drowsy sleep, still smiling, thinking that she could quite happily get used to evenings like this.

*

That night, Jon dreams that he is dead, that he is laid out on that table in the gloomy room at Castle Black, and when he wakes in the Water Gardens, Ghost is licking the tears from his face.

It is the first time he has had such a dream, and his body feels chilled, his heart flutters in his chest. He runs a shaking finger along the scars that he will always bear, and he sighs and stares up at the canopy of his bed, the swirling patterns of its silks, until his heart has slowed again, and then Ghost jumps down onto the floor and disappears out onto the balcony.

Jon palms his morning hardness and thinks of formless things: women's lips, teats, plump backsides, the spill of red hair down a pale back, a man's cock in his mouth, a man's hands holding his wrists down. He bites his lips and grunts, his hips stuttering. It is useless trying not to think of the things he is trying not to think about - of a woman with pale skin, red hair, and full teats; of men with wicked smiles and hard muscles, with cocks that jerk in his grip.

He peaks with a groan and wipes his hands on the sheets, embarrassed at the thought of the servants cleaning them. At Castle Black, it was Satin who cleaned his linen, and since Satin tended to be there in bed with Jon when he was spilling his seed, he knew very well where the stains had come from.

Jon wonders how Satin fares now, if he has found another bed to warm. It was easy to give in to Satin's advances, to him slipping into Jon's bed, lithe and warm, with a soft hand that wormed its way into Jon's smallclothes and worked him expertly while he bit his lip and tried not to make a sound. Jon felt twinges of shame at being with him, even as he told himself that it was only comfort, that any other man would do the same. And yet he was not so mean as to not return the favour and touch Satin in return. He still remembers the amazed look Satin had given him when Jon had slid down and put his mouth on Satin's cock, how Satin had squirmed and spilled his seed within moments, making Jon huff a laugh.

Being with Oberyn, who is taller than him, older and a little broader, would be different, Jon imagines. Oberyn likes to be in control, like the men who paid Jon, and he hates himself for how that thought makes him hot.

He gets out of bed and pulls on his breeches and a loose tunic, not bothering to put on shoes or a jerkin, and calls for Ghost, and the two of them make their way to the pools for a swim.

He cannot remember his wolf swimming much in the frozen waters of the North, but here he seems to love it. Just as Jon does. Jon feels like he could stay in a pool swimming back and forth, working his muscles until they burn, the whole day long, until his fingers pruned painfully. He is acclimatising to his new, warm, life, to living in luxury, and in relaxed company, to long dinners of good food and strong wine. He likes training with Dornishmen; they fight with grace and ferocity, they laugh and jeer and push him to greater feats, and they leave everything on the training ground instead of allowing disagreements and bruised pride to fester.

He joins Sansa on a terrace to break his fast. She looks sleepy and happy, humming as she plaits a section of her hair.

"You do like it here," he says as he reaches for a roll.

"I do," she says, looking over her shoulder at him. "And you?"

"It's alright," he lies, shrugging his shoulders to make her laugh.

She throws the orange peel in her hands at his face, and he acts like she has wounded him, clutching an eye dramatically.

"Dorne is good for you too," Sansa says, sucking orange juice from her fingers as he tries not to stare. "You seem happier, for a measure of happy."

Ellaria sits down at the table with them, smiling warmly at Sansa.

"Are you any good at diving, Jon? I hear Daemon and Oberyn are to have a competition today, jumping into the deep pool below the terrace over there," she nods her head.

"I'll leave them to it, I'm not a fan of jumping from great heights."

"What about Ghost?" she asks as the wolf runs past them with some bird he has caught in its mouth.

"Perhaps if there were large fish in the pool too," Sansa muses.

The three of them spend the day watching Oberyn and Daemon leap off the terrace, bending their bodies into projectiles of varying success, the both of them soundly beaten by the children who make their homes here and seem half-fish with their ease in the water.

"Should you like to see an interesting ruin tomorrow before we return to Sunspear?" Oberyn asks at dinner. "There is an abandoned holdfast named Shandystone which is beautiful at sunrise with the views across the desert. We can camp inside its halls."

"Sounds wonderful," Sansa says, smiling. "It will be nice to camp in the warmth for once, won't it, Jon?"

"Aye," he says, thinking of Ghost who seems eager to stretch his legs for a hunt.

At dinner they are joined by the older youths and some of the servants of the Water Gardens; it is some kind of holiday, Jon gathers. There is wine upon wine and dancing that turns into water dancing, with couples kissing in the shallows and laughter echoing among the terraces.

Sansa begs an early night but Jon feels too on edge to sleep yet, fearful of another dream like last night's.

Daemon teaches him how to play a Dornish game of dice and when Oberyn and Ellaria join the game bets begin to be made. Jon owns little he can gamble with, he owns only what he has been given by the kindness of the Martells after all. But he wins the first three games and soon collects a neat pile of coins at his elbow.

"Not just a pretty face then," Oberyn remarks, "but a shrewd mind too. I can see why they made you Lord Commander."

Jon wins the fourth game but Ellaria is out of coins to pay her share.

"Will you take something else in lieu of copper or silver, Jon?" she asks.

"That depends," he says, sprawling back in his seat.

Ellaria is wearing a dress that loops around her neck and leaves her shoulders and her sides bare, and Jon has been catching glimpses of the sides of her teats all night, her skin glowing in the candle light.

"A kiss," she says, "will that suffice?"

Jon glances across at Oberyn, whose smile is easy.

"I suppose," Jon says, deciding that he shall do as the Dornish do, and take pleasure when it comes to him, "but only if it is a proper kiss."

"A proper kiss," she teases, standing up and sauntering around the table towards him, the movement of her hips mesmerizing.

Ellaria sits on his lap and Jon palms her hips, looking at Oberyn over her shoulder, who is looking at them both lasciviously. She leans down to kiss him and Jon feels his body stir at the wet slide of her hot tongue against his, the nips she gives to his lips, the scratch of her nails on the back of his neck. Eventually, panting, he pulls her back from him by her hair.

"Thank you for the kiss," he says, his voice low.

"You are welcome," she says and pecks him on the cheek before returning to Oberyn who tugs her down for his own kiss, sucking on her lips, the sight of which makes Jon's whole body burn hot. Jon coughs and counts his coins for something to do other than stare at the handsome couple opposite him.

Jon loses the next two games.

"Was that your trick all along, my love," Oberyn says to Ellaria as she crows over her new pile of coins, "distract the poor boy with your kisses?"

"Not exactly," she says.

"She did the same to me a few years ago," Daemon admits and Oberyn roars with laughter, as Jon hides his own chuckles behind his hand.

Jon decides to go to bed then, with his meagre winnings, before she can fleece him out of more, and flops down on his bed, tiredly nudging Ghost out of the way.

The next morning, the four of them leave just after dawn, and Jon sees Sansa look wistful as the Water Gardens retreat from view. Surely their hosts will let her live here if she preferred it to Sunspear, and join the children who play and laugh in its waters. He will ask her if she wants him to speak to Oberyn or Ellaria about it.

Shandystone is beautiful. The sand has drifted inside its crumbled walls, covering the mosaicked floors with dunes that shift and whisper with the wind, and the columns that have fallen look like they were arranged so by some giant as decoration. The desert on the horizon is hazy and beautiful, and yet Jon knows that it is just as dangerous as the ice and snows of the North.

Ghost catches two vipers but turns his nose up at eating them, and Oberyn shows them the traps where he catches his own vipers to milk their venom.

Daemon cooks their meals on the fire and then sings a song of Nymeria and the Rhoynar and of the burning of their boats. There is something about the Dornish that reminds Jon of northern peoples, even of the Free Folk, a deep connection with the land, a timelessness, he thinks.

Sansa sings a song for them next, her voice achingly sweet, and it brings tears to Ellaria's eyes and a lump to Jon's throat.

They make their beds inside a small inner room open to the sky and after Oberyn and Ellaria fall asleep, Jon stays up a little while longer, sharing memories with Sansa who lies in a pile of bedding next to him.

When he wakes the next day, he spends some time watching her face relaxed in sleep, the pink of the early morning sky colouring her skin and glinting in her hair. How he longs to touch her, to kiss her cheek, her soft pout. His hand twitches in the air by her face as he brushes away a strand of hair caught in her eyelashes.

He looks up and sees Oberyn looking in their direction, or more likely just at Sansa. Jon stands up, brushing the sand from his clothes.

"Lemon water?" Oberyn offers quietly.

"Thank you," Jon says, taking a cup and following Oberyn out of the arched doorway and along the walkway to a large fallen column where Oberyn sits and looks out across the warming desert, the sky a patchwork of soft colours.

"I've seen you watching Sansa, how you flirt with her," Jon says, "you should keep your distance."

Oberyn crosses his arms but his face is understanding and it almost makes Jon angrier. "I will not misuse her, Jon. I do not hurt women, on purpose or by making false promises."

Oberyn's hands may be soft as silk, he may be the most considerate lover in all of Dorne, but that is not the point. "She deserves a husband, not a lover who would discard her," Jon says.

"Maybe so, but she says she does not want a husband. Do you think you know better than her, that what you want should win out?"

"No," Jon says angrily.

"In Dorne women decide for themselves who they wish to love, or if they wish to divorce their husbands, to leave their lovers."

Has he already touched Sansa, kissed her? Jon cannot tell, but Oberyn is looking at him strangely.

"I appreciate your brotherly concern," Oberyn says, and then pauses. "But she is not yours to control. I am very fond of Sansa, I care for her dearly, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she is never hurt again, as would you, I imagine."

"Aye," Jon says. "I will protect her with everything I have," he says, crossing his own arms. He has already whored his body to keep her safe on the journey south, he would kill for her easily, give his life to save hers.

Oberyn nods and rests a hand on Jon's shoulder and then walks away. Jon watches him leave and frowns.

Sansa deserves better than Oberyn, who is old enough to be her father, who already has a paramour, who will not marry her; even if he is a kind, rich prince who is, Jon grudgingly admits, honourable within Dornish customs. Oberyn is certainly a better choice than Jon himself though, he thinks darkly, and kicks the sand in front of him.

Chapter Text

"What do you like?" Oberyn asks Sansa some weeks after they have returned from the Water Gardens, as she lies in bed with him and Ellaria, a warm breeze floating through the gauzy curtains of the prince's bedroom, the sweat drying on their skin.

"What do you mean?" Sansa asks, pulling her thin silk robe up around her shoulders.

Ellaria stands up naked from the bed and pads over to pick up a hairbrush from the table. Sansa hopes she can one day be as unashamed as Ellaria, but she is still a little too shy to lie around naked for long after their lovemaking is over.

Ellaria sits behind her and begins to gently brush the knots out of Sansa's long hair as Sansa closes her eyes with pleasure.

"You look like you could purr like a cat," Oberyn says, brushing the backs of his fingers gently down her cheek. He shifts back and onto his side, resting his head on his hand and watching them, as Sansa's eyes slit open. "I mean to ask what you like doing in bed," he explains.

"I like being with you, and Ellaria," Sansa replies.

"We know that," Ellaria says with a smile, brushing a long stroke of her brush from Sansa's scalp to the base of her back.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Well," Oberyn says, "I like to put my mouth on a woman's cunt, I like to have a woman ride me."

Sansa flushes to hear him speak so plain.

"I also like to suck a man's cock," Oberyn continues with a wicked grin, "and to fuck and be fucked by a man."

"I like to kiss," Ellaria says from behind her, "that is what I like best, kissing men and women for hours until both our lips are sore. I like to ride men, which suits Oberyn," she laughs, "and I like to be taken from behind, on my hands and knees, with a few good slaps of a hand to my backside. I like my nipples to be bitten and I have in the past liked to be tied up, but not really any longer." She sets the brush down on the bed and moves around to lay her head on Oberyn's thigh.

"So?" Oberyn prompts.

Sansa closes her eyes and licks her lips. What does she like, what does she like with Oberyn and Ellaria, what did she like with Petyr and Harrold and Myranda, what has she dreamed of?

"I like to be taken slow but hard," she says, and Oberyn nods, his eyes darkening. "I like my...cunt to be licked and sucked," she continues.

"You make the most delicious sounds when we do," Ellaria remarks, stroking a hand down Sansa's calf.

Sansa leans back to lie on the bed, spreading out her hair on the pillow.

"I like to be held down," Sansa says quietly, "by a hand on my wrists, or hands holding my thighs open by the backs of my knees. I like to be put on my front, flat on the bed," she puts her hand on the sheets as if to mime with it the position she means, "while I am taken from behind and above, pushed into the bed. And sometimes, I like a hand over my mouth, to muffle my noises," she trails off and covers her face with her own hands, embarrassed, feeling silly and exposed.

"There is nothing strange or rare about the things you like," Oberyn says, taking her hand and squeezing it, his voice kind. "You should not feel embarrassed. I can tell you about some of the strange things Ellaria and I have seen in brothels, if you like. Some men like feet, did you know that? - bare or in shoes, carefully washed or smelling of sweat–"

Sansa makes a disgusted noise and Ellaria laughs.

"Some people like to dress up as other people - kings, septas, soldiers, courtesans - and some people like to be hurt, but I do not think you do."

"No," Sansa says, shaking her head.

"Some like their bodies to be oiled so they slip and slide over one another, others like food to be placed on their bodies and nibbled off, a messy endeavour," Oberyn adds knowingly.

"I was still finding crumbs days afterwards," Ellaria remarks and Sansa laughs again.

"So you see," Oberyn says, "I promise you that nothing you desire could surprise us. And also," he says more seriously, "you may find that the things you desire are not the things you want, that they may just be fantasies. And of course, you know that you may always say no, or stop, to anything we do, at any time, yes?"

Sansa nods.

"And if you should like someone else to join our lovemaking; a strong young man, perhaps, you will tell us?" Ellaria says with a twinkle in her eye.

"I will," Sansa says, trying to think of a man she could trust, a man other than Oberyn that she desires.

"Some breakfast now, I think," Ellaria says, with a soft pat on Sansa's head, "We have given you much to think about."

She helps Sansa wash and dress again as Oberyn sprawls on the bed and watches, rubbing a lazy hand over his chest and ignoring his hardening manhood.

The two women head to the terrace where breakfast awaits, along with Jon who sits in the sun, face lifted to it, with Ghost panting at his feet.

Sansa feels a little jolt of shame when Jon looks up and smiles at her, thinking of what she has been doing only an hour earlier, and of the conversation she has just had. Jon does not know that she is laying with either of them, and she does not want him to know, even as the secrecy eats at her sometimes, even as she also wishes that Jon did know who she really is, that she is not the sweet girl he thinks she is.

"I hear you and Oberyn will spar later," Ellaria says to Jon, as she spreads a piece of bread with honey and soft cheese.

"Aye," Jon says with a smirk, shading his eyes from the sun, "he fancies losing to me again."

"Oh, he lost last time, did he? He told me that he thrashed you soundly."

"He said that?" Jon grins, sitting back in his seat, rubbing his beard.

Ellaria rolls her eyes. "You boys and your spears and swords."

"As if you don't like to watch Oberyn sweat on the training ground," he says knowingly, and Ellaria swats at him as he gets up and walks past her, laughing.

Ellaria told Sansa that she had kissed Jon at the Water Gardens, after losing to him in a game of dice. Sansa is not sure what it would be like to share a lover with her own brother, but perhaps if she does not have to hear any details it would not be too strange. If their other siblings were still alive, then they would certainly have had something to say about it, and Catelyn would have—Sansa is not quite sure what she would have done, blamed Ellaria, or somehow Jon, for corrupting her, no doubt. They didn't need to corrupt me, mother, she thinks, that happened long ago.

"Shall we watch them spar?" Ellaria asks, as Sansa chews on a piece of orange rind, her mind elsewhere.

"Yes," she says, and picks up her veil to cover her shoulders from the sun on the walk across the grounds of the palace.

"Have you ever seen Jon fight?" Ellaria asks as they enter through the archway and pass a group of young recruits who bow their head at them both.

"As a child, yes, but not as a man."

"They say that he is one of the greatest swordsmen Westeros has ever seen, and despite what the Red Viper himself said, I know that Jon has beaten him many more times than he has won."

They find a space in the shaded colonnade above the field, between trailing vines, and a servant brings them a bench to sit on so they can lean over the edge to watch as Jon and Oberyn are strapped into their leathers, Jon putting light armour on top of his while Oberyn goes without.

"No helmets?" Sansa asks.

"No, Oberyn never fights with one, nor with metal armour. But they are using live steel today." Ellaria rests her head on her crossed arms. "It is only in the last year that I have been able to watch him fight again without my heart hurting. You heard about his fight against the Mountain?"

Sansa nods, and rests her hand on Ellaria's shoulder.

"He was so close to falling, so close to being crushed to death under that monster," Ellaria closes her eyes, "but it is done, he has made his revenge against Elia's killer, and we shall never again return to King's Landing and the Red Keep."

"I shall drink to that," Sansa says, pouring them some wine with the flagon by her elbow.

"To never going back," Ellaria says.

"To always heading forward," Sansa says and so exuberantly does Sansa knock her cup against Ellaria's that wine spills down her fingers. She sucks it from her skin and Ellaria gives her a heated look over the rim of her own cup.

A call goes out across the field and a few of the recruits gather at its edges to watch as Oberyn and Jon take their starting positions. Oberyn is using a shorter curved sword to Jon's Longclaw and is spinning it extravagantly in the air, showing off, before Jon lunges quickly and Oberyn must parry his blade.

The clash of blade against blade is loud and Sansa cannot imagine the force their muscles are withstanding as they thrust and slash and parry, circling each other, pushing each other back across the field.

Jon is light on his feet, ferocious, and he commits to every movement, pushing Oberyn back as the Dornishman laughs and jeers. Jon is talking too, Sansa can hear the murmur of his voice, and see a smirk on his face as he turns his body and sends Oberyn skidding back on his feet. Oberyn attacks, whirling and ducking and hitting but Jon blocks every blow, barely giving up a foot of ground.

"They look good like this, don't they," Ellaria remarks, "strong and virile."

Oberyn looks fearsome, every inch the Red Viper, and the knowledge that she has had this man in her bed, that she has made him fall apart, makes Sansa's belly heat.

Next, she considers her brother. If he were not her brother, then she would probably find him just as arousing to watch, for he is handsome and has a mesmerizing focus and strength on the field.

And yet she also feels a note of sadness, for Jon had trained for so many years with Robb and Theon, and all the others at Winterfell, and their ghosts seem to dog his steps. Jon had told her only a little of the battles he had fought in the North against the Wildlings, and the White Walkers and their army, and Sansa is selfishly pleased that he does not have to fight like that anymore, that he is safe here in Dorne, just as she is.

The recruits cheer as Jon finally knocks Oberyn's sword from his hand and holds his blade underneath Oberyn's lifted chin.

Jon takes his sword back and laughs at something Oberyn says, pulling him up by the arm and slapping him on the back companionably.

"Fighting is good for those two, it stops them from butting heads across the dinner table or sulking over breakfast," Ellaria says.

The two men look up towards them and Ellaria waves and calls out, "well done, Jon!" and says to Oberyn, "Your age is showing, my love!" as Oberyn staggers back as if from a blow.

Jon stares at Sansa, his chest heaving, a smear of dirt on his cheek, and her smile drops at the intensity of his gaze. What? she wants to ask but he breaks the stare and starts untying his armour and she takes another sip of her wine.

*

Jon is walking through the palace late one night, after a few hours spent drinking wine in the gardens with some of the recruits before they left for a brothel in the city, when he hears the sound of familiar laughter.

He follows the sound, his footsteps light on the marble floors, most of the servants who roam the halls long asleep by now, and passes through a courtyard where the fountain has been turned off and a cat laps at its still waters.

Some of the rooms in this part of the royal apartments do not have doors but curtains instead, which cover the great arched doorways, and Jon stops just in front of one, a swathe of red fabric threaded with gold and edged by jewelled tassels.

The room he is in is dark, lit only by the light that leaks from the candles of the previous room, but the chamber he looks at through the narrow gap between curtain and wall is lit by warm oranges and reds. There is a bed without a canopy in his line of sight, covered with pillows and silks, and as he watches, Sansa and Ellaria walk towards it, followed by Oberyn.

Jon should make his presence known, he thinks, as Oberyn sits on the bed, resting against the headboard, his bare arms spread across it, looking languid and hungry. Ellaria lifts Sansa to stand up on the bed and stands behind her, as if presenting her to Oberyn. Sansa is wearing a shy smile and a strange dress of sheer silk criss-crossed by ribbons of red.

Jon should not be watching this, Jon should pull the curtain fully closed and walk away.

"You won't join us tonight?" Sansa asks Ellaria, sounding more womanly, knowing, than Jon has ever heard her sound.

"No, dear one, my moonblood has put me ill-at-ease, I shall unwrap Oberyn's present for him and then leave you two to it, and have a nice long bath, alone," she says with a laugh.

"And what a present she makes," Oberyn says, his eyes roaming Sansa's body as Jon's hands curl into fists behind the curtain.

"Exquisite indeed," Ellaria says as she begins to untie each knot covering Sansa, baring more of her to Oberyn, and to Jon who is still watching.

Jon barely stops himself from groaning when the silk dress drops at Sansa's feet. Her teats are plump; her nipples pink and tight; her hips are pale and full, begging for a man's hands around them; and the hair between her thighs is red like flame. She is a goddess made flesh and Jon is in agony.

"There you are," Ellaria says, kissing Sansa's neck as Sansa clutches the back of her head. "All yours." Ellaria steps down from the bed, moves around it to kiss Oberyn and whisper something into his ear, and then leaves by the opposite doorway, closing the door tightly behind her.

That Sansa lays with both Oberyn and Ellaria is clear, and Jon feels an aching jealousy, a burn in his gut.

"You're beautiful, Sansa," Oberyn says, bringing her down to lie on her back on the bed. "Perfect," he says, sweeping a hand down her body as she squirms breathlessly.

"What shall I do with you, hmm?" he asks and then sucks her nipples, holding Sansa's wrists away as she tries to direct his head.

He drags his lips down her body and puts his mouth to her cunt, holding her thighs apart, his fingertips digging into her flesh as she whines and wails, and Jon is now so hard he fears a single touch to his cock will have him spilling immediately. How he longs to be the one to kiss her there, to sup from her cunt, to taste her, how he dreams of it.

She is beautiful when she finally peaks, her face scrunched up in pleasure, her back arching.

Jon watches as Oberyn crawls up over her and she spreads her legs and puts her arms up above her head on the pillow. "My wrists," she says and Jon does not understand until Oberyn takes both of her slim wrists in one of his large hands, holding them firmly. Then he lifts one of her legs up with his other hand on the back of her knee, and enters her with a groan as she moans softly, her hips stuttering.

"It aches, doesn't it, sweet girl," Oberyn murmurs, as Sansa nods, and then he begins to thrust slowly, heavily, her teats bouncing with the force.

Jon has tears in his eyes – from some kind of grief that he is not the one who is loving her, giving her what she needs; and from a tenderness at seeing Sansa so tender, so open, as she whines and squirms; her hips arching every time Oberyn tells her she is beautiful, and good, and perfect.

She peaks with a squeal and Oberyn flips her on her front and sits on the backs of her thighs, with one hand pressing on her lower back and the other just below her neck, as she grips the sheets in front of her.

Sansa's head is facing in Jon's direction but her eyes are closed, she is biting her lip, muffling her moans as Oberyn enters her again and thrusts, his strong thighs working, and Sansa must feel so tight like that, and she seems to love it so much—

Jon grits his teeth and presses his hand against the wall, his breath almost panting, and then Sansa lifts her head a little and opens her eyes and looks at him, at Jon.

And Jon's heart stops as Sansa's eyes widen but then Oberyn thrusts again and her eyelids flutter close, she moans, and Jon turns and flees, almost running, his cheeks hot and his eyes wet, and he races through the palace until he comes to the Spear Tower and he runs up its spiral staircase, hand smearing sweat on its walls, until he finds a dark alcove where he can sit in the dust and cover his face with his hands.

Jon had hoped that Sansa had not seen him, it had been dark where he stood after all, and she had not called out or screamed, but when he sees her at dinner the next day and she flushes red, it is clear that she did.

She comes to his rooms later that night, sweeping inside without knocking as Jon stands up from the couch where he had been sitting, and brooding.

"Sansa-" he says, his voice tight.

"Jon," she replies, and puts her back to him, studying the meagre contents of his desk. "I know you saw me," she says.

"Sansa, I'm so sorry-"

"You can call me a whore if you like," she says in a small voice.

"I would never-" Jon shakes his head. "Sansa-"

She turns around. Her mouth is twisted, her forehead frowning. She tilts her chin up. "I'm not the sweet girl of our youth, I'm not who you think I am. You think I'm so pure."

"I know that you were mistreated-"

She huffs bitterly. "By Littlefinger? What would you say if I said that I wanted it, that I went to his bed willingly, even as I knew he was probably to blame for the tragedies of our family. I didn't care," she says, and swipes at her eyes, "I liked the way he made me feel. Everyone was dead anyway and abstaining wouldn't help bring them back," she says, her breath shaking. "So you may call me a whore, Jon, for I am one," she says, and shrugs her shoulders defeatedly.

"Don't use that word," he begs. For if there is a whore in the room, it is only himself.

"What else would you call me? What else would mother say, and father, and Robb. I betrayed them and I gave up my honour like it was nothing." She snaps her fingers.

"You were seduced, you did what you had to do to survive," he says, because he knows that Sansa is saying that she was in control, that she was the one who decided to give in to him, but does she not see that she was vulnerable, that he took advantage of that?

"Do you not hear what I said?" she says disbelievingly, "and, anyway," she says with a dry laugh, throwing a hand into the air, "you saw me, you know what I do with Oberyn, and Ellaria, how I lay with them both. I want them, I like being with them."

"Do you want my absolution?" he asks.

"No, I want you to know who I am, to see me."

"I see you, Sansa. I'm here, you can talk to me about anything, you can always come to me." He shakes his head. "Do you think I did not do things I regret in the years we spent apart, make dishonourable choices too?"

"I don't feel enough regret," she admits, her body softening as she drifts to sit on the couch opposite him, "or enough shame, I think that is the true problem. Shouldn't I want to punish myself?"

She looks younger, sadder, and he reaches out to hold her hand.

"No, you should feel safe, and happy, that is what I want for you, and if they make you happy-"

"They do," she nods, and he tries not to show how that makes him feel so very jealous.

"Good," he says instead, squeezing her hand. "Sansa, this is not a future that anyone imagined for us. I died, Sansa, and was brought back to life by a red priestess praying to a foreign god. You were named a murderess, you escaped from King's Landing and then from the Vale. We've found a new home here in Dorne, and we have to look to the future."

"Do as the Dornish do?" she asks with a wry grin.

"Aye," he says.

"You should trim your beard then, no Dornishman wears it full like that," she teases.

"I'm not so vain as them."

"Are you not?" she asks, laughing.

He shakes his head, "you're terrible."

"Oh, Jon," she says, flopping back on the couch. "I feel so relieved that you know now, it hurt to keep secrets."

"Aye, it does," he says, and means it.

Unlike Sansa, he will never share his worst secret with her, that he loves her and wants her; that will be a secret that he takes to the grave.

"But they are good to you?" he checks again.

"Yes, Jon," she says with a sigh. "So don't go challenging Oberyn to any fights."

"He'd only lose," he replies, his heart still aching in his chest.

A few weeks later, Oberyn asks Jon to accompany Ellaria and Daemon on a visit to Hellholt, Ellaria's father's keep.

Jon feels guilty for being glad at the chance to leave Sunspear for a moon or so and not have to see Sansa flirting with Oberyn and Ellaria around the palace, trading kisses and holding hands while his mind spins images of what else they are doing away from prying eyes. He is heartsick, and angry with himself for being so, when she is so happy.

Jon enjoys seeing more of Dorne on their journey west, racing his sand steed across the open desert with a scarf across his face against the sand as Ghost runs beside him. Ellaria is true horsewoman, she is firm in her seat and she never complains about sore legs, riding just as hard as them.

They cross the murky waters of the Greenblood at a shallow point near a group of women washing their clothes and children splashing each other; and pass the olive groves near its banks, plucking handfuls to eat with the cheese they have bartered from a shepherd. They sleep under the open sky, or under canvas if the winds are high, on the edges of caravans making their way across Dorne, sharing their dinner with the travellers, or all alone with only the wilderness for company.

Jon misses Sansa, and wishes he could share every new sight with her, even as he is glad that she is safe behind the walls of the palace, for twice their party come across bandits and twice Ghost fights off rabid dogs that are drawn by the smell of cooking meat.

Hellholt is grim and poorly-built in comparison with the rest of Dorne, smelling of the slow-moving river near its walls, and Jon is happy when they leave after staying for only a few days.

Ellaria says they will take the longer route back, and stop at her favourite oasis, and Jon is happy to agree. He has grown even fonder of Ellaria on this journey. She is fierce and kind in equal measure, and he likes the way she needles him, and teases him and then calls him, dear boy, and scritches her nails through his hair, or leans against his shoulder when they sit by the evening fire.

Daemon has become a good friend; he is almost as fun to spar with as Oberyn, and more skilled with a sword which is a challenge for Jon. Daemon brought a small harp with them, an indulgence which Jon mocked him for and yet he enjoys listening to him play and sing in the evenings. He has tried to teach Jon but his hands are too clumsy on the strings, and Daemon said that this was only fair, for Jon cannot be good at everything. A comment which made Jon grab him and rub his knuckles over his scalp.

The oasis is beautiful, the sky glowing pink when they arrive, the green of the palm trees and the grasses around the water a startling sight after the pale colours of the desert.

While Daemon is off hunting their dinner, Ellaria strips in front of Jon's relaxed sprawl by the water's edge, and wades into the oasis while he watches.

Her body is brown and her limbs are lithe. Her teats are full but they hang lower than those of younger women, and there is a pouch of soft skin on her stomach and spidery lines on her hips, reminders, Jon realises, of how her body has borne four children.

It makes him feel tender towards her, desire her, these tokens of motherhood, and he scrubs a hand through his beard which has grown thicker and wilder without a good mirror to shave. His skin has become darker under the Dornish sun, unlike Sansa, who only goes pink and grows new freckles that Jon aches to trace with his tongue.

"Will you join me, Jon?" Ellaria calls.

"If you promise not to splash me," he replies, making her laugh. He strips off his musty clothes and pushes himself out into the oasis, shivering at the pleasant chill of the water, dipping his head back to wet his hair and scrubbing out the sand trapped in it.

He comes close to her, unashamed by his nakedness as her eyes roam his body.

"Jon Snow," she says with a sly smile.

"That's me," he replies.

She runs her hand down the scars on his chest, frowning, and then her hand drifts further to palm his stiffening cock.

"Is this for me?" she teases.

"If you like," he says with a casual shrug, but inside his heart is racing. He has not been touched by another woman since Ygritte, since before he died.

"I do," she says, squeezing him, and then she wades away, calling back, "follow me. Fucking in an oasis sounds better than it actually is, we need solid ground."

He laughs and strides after her, watching the way her hips sway as the light in the sky dims to purple.

He sprawls back on the pile of bedding they prepared earlier and then sits up on his hands.

"We will lay together as long as you are not thinking of another woman," Ellaria says, kneeling in front of him, water droplets gleaming on her skin, "as long as it is me you are laying with, understood?"

"Yes," he says, smoothing a hand around her waist, trying to ignore her knowing eyes.

"Good boy," she replies and kisses him, then straddles his lap.

He sucks at her teats, breathing in the hot smell of her skin, putting a hand between her legs to feel how wet she is, and she fits his cock inside of her and rides him hard until he grunts and peaks. Then he sets her on her back and licks at her cunt until she peaks again, and Daemon, who has just arrived back with two desert hares slung over his shoulder, claps at them from the other side of their camp. Jon stands up and bows, and Ellaria laughs so hard she coughs.

The next morning, Jon wakes early and watches dawn spread across the sky, and the reflection of its colours on the surface of the oasis, and thinks that he should like to bring Sansa here one day, that she would like its beauty.

Dorne has been good to both of them, and he wonders idly how different his life might have been if he had grown up here and not in the North.

It was rumoured that Jon's mother was Dornish and he likes to think of her growing up near a place like this, being wild and free like Ellaria, and sweet like Sansa, racing sand steeds across the desert with the wind in her curls.

*

Sansa misses Jon and Ellaria both when they are away and in the first week she finds herself wandering the halls of the palace looking for them before she remembers they are not there.

She spends more time with the Sand Snakes, especially the youngest, charmed by the way they are miniature versions of their parents. She sings them northern songs, watches Elia and Obella practise throwing daggers at targets, and helps little Loreza with her embroidery. She also accompanies them on their trips to the city orphanage where they bring toys that Oberyn has bought from merchants, and answers questions the orphans have about the North, helping the septas with their lessons.

Sansa's time at the orphanage makes her think about having her own children one day, which no longer feels like an impossibility. To have children outside of wedlock would have been a shocking thing to her younger self but here in Dorne it seems commonplace. To have a daughter with Oberyn's dark eyes, with his wicked laugh, yes, she thinks she would like that one day.

In the balmy evenings when she has returned to the palace, she eats dinner with Oberyn and lays with him in his bed, or under the stars on his balcony until she is so tired Oberyn has to carry her inside to sleep. She feels safe in his arms and his bed, comfortable with trying new things during their lovemaking, although nothing still makes her peak harder than when he holds her down on her back, his hips pushing her hard into the bed, murmuring sweet things to her.

One afternoon they are lounging on a couch in the shade of a balcony, the city humming in front of them, birds wheeling in the warm air above it. Oberyn has been quiet and thoughtful the last few days.

"Sansa, do you remember the Princes' Parade your first day in Sunspear?"

"How could I forget?" she says, fingers working a needle through a new panel of embroidery she is making for Jon, a picture of Ghost in front of the towers of the palace of Sunspear.

"There are some different versions of the tale," Oberyn says, "the two princes who parade through the city, discarding all their belongings so they can race faster and win the hand of their beloved." His voice is uncharacteristically serious. "There is a darker version that my mother once told me, where the two princes are brothers and the woman they love is their sister who is promised to another. They give away all their possessions as they pass through the city because they know they are journeying on a race towards their deaths, killing themselves out in the desert to save their sister from them both, to save the city being torn apart with jealousy and rivalry."

"Is it true?" Sansa asks, gut quivering as if she knows why he has told her this tale.

"Who can tell which tale is the truer," he says.

"You are telling me this now for a reason."

"Sometimes we do not see the people closest to us as clearly as those at a distance might."

"Jon isn't in love with me," she says quickly, "that's ridiculous. I'm his sister, he would never-"

"I don't think love is something we can control. If he loves you it is not because he wishes to."

"But he is my brother," she says, fingers shaking, accidentally pricking her palm with her needle. She sucks the blood from the wound.

"He would never wish you ill–"

"I know that," she says, feeling flustered. "He saved me, he feels protective over me."

She thinks back over their time together since Castle Black. Has he ever treated her like something other, more, than a sister, like a lover? She cannot pinpoint any particular moment when he has, except—

"I told you that he saw us that night, when we were together," she says to Oberyn. "Is that where this notion comes from?"

She tries to remember Jon's face when she had looked up and seen him in the shadows behind the curtain, the emotions writ upon it.

"I knew before then and I cannot quite explain why," Oberyn says, "it is something about his sadness, his sorrow when he watches you when you are not looking."

She shakes her head. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I thought you should know," he says simply, and reaches an arm around her shoulder. She cuddles into him and closes her eyes, thinking of Jon and his sorrow.

Sansa fears it will be awkward when Jon returns from his travels, that this new knowledge will tarnish their relationship, but thankfully it does not, although she spends more time watching him now, studying him.

She is not disgusted with him like she should be, not horrified, but only sad. Jon deserves to find love, and if his heart is full of her, there will be no room for anyone else.

*

On the feast day that celebrates the first official day of Winter, it is tradition in Dorne for old servants to return to the homes of their previous masters and be given gifts of food and gold.

And since Doran is living at the Water Gardens these days, soothing his painful joints in their waters, it is Oberyn who sits in the throne room at Sunspear welcoming the many royal servants back to their old home.

It is a day of many emotions, for the guests and for Oberyn, and for the sharing of memories about those who are no longer with them - his mother and Elia among them.

After the official presentation, there is a feast in the great hall on long tables laden with richly spiced meats, ripe fruits, sweet cheeses, and flagons of the best vintages of wine.

Jon is late to the feast, having been hunting at the coast with Ghost, and when he enters the hall, Oberyn sees a maidservant by the name of Myria, who used to serve Oberyn's older daughters, look at Jon as if she has seen a ghost.

Later, once honeyed fruit cakes have been served, Oberyn invites Myria to join him for a cup of wine in a quiet spot on the balcony looking over the central courtyard with its spectacular fountains and rows of orange trees.

"I wanted to speak to you too," she says as he helps her settle onto a seat in the shade.

"Myria, will you tell me why you looked shocked when you saw Jon Snow enter the feast?"

She nods and puts the back of her hand to her mouth. "He looks just like her," she says, her voice thick with tears.

"Like who?" Oberyn asks, reaching over to hold her other hand.

"Lady Lyanna. Lyanna Stark."

"Ned Stark was his father," Oberyn says gently, "Lyanna's brother."

"No," Myria says, shaking her head. "He looks like Lyanna, because he is her son. I was there, Oberyn," she clutches his hand tightly, her face creased with pain, "I was at the Tower of Joy when Lyanna gave birth to Rhaegar's son."

"No," Oberyn whispers, his body clenched with shock.

"I was there as she sickened from a birthing fever and Rhaegar's men refused to get a maester, I was there when Eddard Stark arrived and slaughtered the Kingsguard on the slopes below the tower, when he ran up the stairs and found Lyanna lying in a pool of her own blood. I was there, Oberyn, when she named the babe Jaehaerys, and gave him to his uncle, begging him to keep him safe from the Usurper."

"Rhaegar's son," Oberyn says in disbelief, as they watch Jon, Jaehaerys, walk along the paths of the garden arm in arm with Ellaria.

Did Oberyn not think that Jon was familiar when he first met him? Is there something about the way he wields a sword that reminds him of Rhaegar? Is his laugh an echo of Lyanna's laughter at the Tourney of Harrenhal, when Oberyn had come across her racing her horse around a clearing in the woods while her brothers cheered her on.

If Jon is not Ned Stark's son, then Sansa is not his sister, but his cousin.

"Myria, you need to tell him, he needs to know."

She nods and composes herself. "I will beg for his forgiveness for not saving his mother, for never telling him."

"He will forgive you, he is a good man. Better than Rhaegar," he says, feeling that old flame of anger at the prince who had treated his sister so ill.

Quentyn was sent to make an alliance with Daenerys and now Arianne is attempting to do the same, but all the while the heir to the Iron Throne is already here, living in the palace, taking meals with them, training every day with his sword as if he is waiting for some great war to come.

Chapter Text

The morning after the feast, Oberyn introduces Myria to Jon and leaves them talking in the central courtyard, surrounded by fragrant lemon trees and the glitter of fountains. A beautiful setting in which to learn that all you thought you knew about yourself was a lie, Oberyn thinks, making his way to a balcony overlooking the courtyard and Ellaria who waits for him.

Jon and Myria are hidden from view by several trees but Oberyn and Ellaria watch the paths below them in case he flees, distraught, and needs their help.

"Does he remind you of Rhaegar?" Ellaria asks Oberyn, holding him tightly by the arm.

"He is single-minded like Rhaegar, dutiful, and he seems to carry some of his father's sorrow. But he is better with a sword than Rhaegar, and a better man too. He would not have treated Elia like his father, nor left Lyanna to die alone."

Ellaria squeezes his hand. "Targaryen men and their Stark women," she sighs.

"If he did not grow up a Stark, perhaps they might have been betrothed," Oberyn muses, "but Ned did the honourable thing hiding him as one of his own sons, he kept him safe until the end. It is Ned Stark to whom he owes his upbringing, his honour."

"Poor Jon. I cannot imagine how he must be feeling. We must help him," she says.

"We shall."

"Will this be a problem for Doran's plans with the Targaryen princess?"

"I cannot imagine that Jon wants to fight her for the right to sit on the Iron Throne, can you?"

Jon speaks with Myria for many hours, only leaving the courtyard a little while before dusk, walking swiftly away with a bowed head. Oberyn's first impulse is to hurry after him but Ellaria holds him back.

"We'll find him later. Let him fall apart alone first, he won't want an audience."

But as it turns out, it is Jon who comes to find them, knocking brusquely on the door of their bedchamber and entering before they can call him in. He stands just inside the room, looking at the ground, his hands in tight fists, his knuckles bruised.

"Jon-" Ellaria begins and he lifts his head, a look of such agony on his face.

"I want to forget, just for tonight," he says, his voice hoarse.

"Alright," Ellaria says, and holds out her hand.

He comes closer to their bed. Oberyn moves to stand, thinking that he should leave Ellaria to comfort him, but Jon stops him.

"Stay," Jon says, gripping Oberyn's tunic in his fist.

Oberyn holds Jon by the scruff of his neck, and then Jon kisses him, frantically, desperately, and Oberyn returns the kiss in the same fashion, knowing that there is no use trying to gentle him, that that is not what Jon needs right now.

Jon pulls back with a gasp and then moves to kiss Ellaria. "Darling boy," she says between kisses as he makes a desperate animal noise.

Jon tugs off his own tunic and rucks down his breeches and Ellaria and Oberyn strip themselves, tugging Jon down between them on the bed, returning his kisses and gropes with an equal hunger.

*

Jon does not want to think of anything but this tonight, but his body between Oberyn and Ellaria.

Oberyn is behind him, his hands sliding round to work Jon's cock, his own cock nudging against Jon's arse; and Ellaria is in front, Jon's hands working on her nipples and dipping into her cunt.

Oberyn brings his hand back between them, entering Jon with a finger as Jon thrusts back.

"Yes?" Oberyn checks, starting to stretch Jon with his fingers, finding oil from somewhere which smears down on the bedsheets.

"Yes," gasps Jon and he grunts as Oberyn finally enters him, and then moans when Ellaria guides his cock into her cunt.

He is wedged between the two of them, his mind narrowing to the overwhelming pleasures of fucking and being fucked, to the slide of skin against skin, to mouths kissing and sucking and hands grasping, and when he spills it feels as if it has been wrenched from somewhere deep inside of him.

Later, once the sweat on his body has dried, and as Ellaria strokes his hair back from his forehead, Jon says, "I need to tell Sansa. She thinks that I'm her brother but now she is the last of her family left, the last of the Starks."

"Your mother was a Stark, that makes you one, I think," Ellaria says.

"My mother—she was so young," Jon says, thinking of a girl only a few years older than Sansa was when she left Winterfell, a girl with black hair like Jon and Arya. Jon looks nothing like a Targaryen should, like his father, so he must look like his mother.

"I met her once, at the tourney at Harrenhal, before she was crowned Rhaegar's Queen of love and beauty. She was a wild thing, young and free, she rode like a Dornishwoman and her brothers adored her."

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears that threaten to fall.

"And Rhaegar, my father?"

"You are a better man than him. Dorne does not remember him well," Oberyn says and then clutches Jon's shoulder. "But sons are not their fathers and you will always have a home here. Knowing this about you does not make Ellaria and I love you any less."

Sansa is her sweet, understanding self when Jon tells her.

"Don't apologise," she says to him as they stand on her balcony.

"But I feel like I've taken your last brother away from you."

"You're still Jon, still you, and you're family. It comforts me that Lyanna continues in you, she was too fierce for her life to be snuffed out like that."

That Sansa is his cousin, and not his sister, should be a comfort to Jon, for now his desire for her is not wrong, since cousins may love cousins after all, but he knows that he wanted her when he thought she was his sister, and to her he is still like a brother. Besides, Rhaegar's lust for Jon's mother, a Targaryen who stole away a Stark girl, feels like an uncomfortable parallel, as if the tragedies of history might repeat if Jon gave in and told her how he felt.

"I wanted Ned as a father," he admits to Sansa and she hugs him and strokes a hand down his back.

"He was your father, the one that counted, the one who raised you and made you who you are."

But if Jon thinks that he can work through his feelings about this new knowledge, that it will not change anything substantial about his future, he is cruelly mistaken, for a few moons later, three large dragons arrive in Dorne, accompanied by an army with a Targaryen ruler at its head.

Jon knows that Prince Doran has been working on an alliance with Daenerys, that he plans to put her on the Iron Throne and have his revenge against the Lannisters; and his daughter Arianne, who has cemented that alliance, returns to Sunspear with Daenerys. Among Daenerys's other advisors is a woman Jon had not wished to ever meet again, Melisandre, the red priestess. It is Melisandre, Jon learns, who has told Daenerys that Jon is Rhaegar's son, that he is R'hllor's fabled Prince Who Was Promised who will lead Westeros in a fight against the White Walkers.

As much as he tried to ignore it, Jon has always known that he would have to reckon with leaving the North to its fate, with running away from his Night's Watch duties, but he did not know it would come in this inescapable form.

Daenerys has letters from the Night's Watch, from northern families too, sharing their fears about the White Walkers and their army, pleading for help since Queen Cersei has forsaken them. Melisandre has seen a vision of the armies in her flames, and Daenerys has dreamed of them, and is resolute. They are heading to the Wall to battle against this otherworldly force before they turn south to fight the armies of the living and win the Iron Throne for Daenerys' cause.

Can Jon really stay here in Dorne and pretend that Westeros is not in peril?

"So you are my nephew," Daenerys says, a few evenings after she has arrived, as they stand in the small courtyard near the feast hall.

"Apparently so."

"You do not look like I expected," she says, circling him.

Daenerys has a piercing gaze and a manner that demands respect. She throws a larger shadow than her slight form might suggest, although the fact that she commands dragons helps, Jon thinks wryly. 

"They tell me that you are one of the finest warriors Westeros has ever seen. That you are dutiful, honourable, a natural leader of men. You are young, healthy and strong, and handsome too."

"You sound as if you are selling me at a market, that I am your prize bull."

She tilts her head and smiles. "They say you do not want the Iron Throne, even though you are Rhaegar's heir, is that true?"

"Aye, it is. I have no interest in ruling Westeros. None at all. I would not be a good ruler, I do not have it in me."

"Forgive me if I do not yet trust these assertions."

"You are wise to be distrustful of those you have only just met. I could say that Prince Oberyn would vouch for my character, but do you trust him either?"

"Would you like to meet my dragons, Jon Snow?"

"Why, so that you can order them to kill me?"

"No, so that you can ride one of them," a voice says, as Tyrion walks into view, wine in hand.

"Me, ride a dragon? Don't be ridiculous," Jon says, trying to ignore the fizz of excitement inside of him, the way his heart had thrummed when the dragons first appeared over Sunspear and landed with a thud in the training ground.

"Daenerys has been searching for riders for Rhaegal and Viserion," Tyrion says, "and who would be a better choice than a Targaryen?"

*

Oberyn is there on the terrace above the training ground, arm around Sansa's trembling shoulders, when Jon approaches Daenerys's dragons for the first time.

"He's so stupid," Sansa is muttering, clutching her scarf in her fists. "Stupid. He's going to get himself killed."

"He said that they feel like Ghost to him, the dragons, nudging against his thoughts," Oberyn consoles her.

"Look at him, he's like a boy excited to meet a new horse, a horse that's far too large for him to ride." She lets out a yelp as one of the dragons whips around and snarls at Jon. "I can't watch," she says, covering her face.

"It's alright," Oberyn says, "look, one of them likes him."

Rhaegal has taken a shine to Jon, who is petting his head like he is only a larger version of Ghost, while Daenerys climbs up Drogon.

"Oh gods," Sansa says, peeking through her fingers as Jon climbs up Rhaegal's shoulders.

And then the dragons take flight, and Oberyn and Sansa watch, heads craned back, as Jon flies through the air on the back of his dragon.

"No one can say he is not a Targaryen now," Oberyn says.

Oberyn has been listening to the tales of the White Walkers and their armies of the dead. He has spoken with Daenerys and her advisors, and with Jon who is the only person who has met these creatures in the flesh.

"You're going to the Wall with them," Doran says from behind his desk when Oberyn enters his solar one morning. "And you're taking my armies with you."

"I am," Oberyn replies, studying his brother's weary face as Doran finishes writing a scroll and sets his quill down.

"I never planned for this. For a fight against dark magics, for an army of the dead," Doran says.

"The gods have their plans, and we have ours," Oberyn says. "If I do not return-"

"Yes, yes," Doran says with a wave of his hand. "Ellaria will keep her honoured place at court, as will Sansa, I will love your daughters like my own. A pointless conversation to have, for you will return. No Dornish prince will be buried in the snows of the North."

"Are you a soothsayer now, brother?"

"Just confident in your skills. You are the greatest warrior that Dorne has ever seen after all, bar the Sword of the Morning and a certain Targaryen prince of course."

Oberyn laughs. "I am, aren't I," he says.

"It is keeping an eye on your daughters who wish to fight alongside you that will be the true task."

Oberyn sobers. "Obara, Nymeria, and Elia. I have persuaded Obella that she is yet too young, and asked Tyene to stay here where her skills can better serve you."

"You have trained them well, Oberyn. They will be a credit to you, and to Dorne."

"Thank you," Oberyn says, picking up a letter knife from the desk and twirling it in his hands. "I shall freeze up there at the Wall, I hope you spare a thought for me as you lie in your warm bed, as you spend lazy days at the Water Gardens and have rich feasts. They drink ale up in the North, did you know that? And there is no room on our boats to take good Dornish wines."

"I shall make sure to drink many toasts in your honour," Doran says with a smirk as Oberyn laughs and leaves the room to meet with his daughters.

*

Jon and Oberyn are to journey to the Wall and beyond, they are to fight the White Walkers and their army of the dead, in order to save Westeros from the greatest peril it has seen in thousands of years. Sansa wants to beg them both to stay here, safe in Dorne, here with her, but she will not.

On his last night in Sunspear, Sansa lays with Oberyn and Ellaria in their bed, tangled up in a pile of limbs, working themselves to exhaustion. Oberyn is all confidence about his quest but the tight, bruising, grip of his hands tells a different tale.

Sansa barely sleeps an hour before Oberyn gets up from the bed and Ellaria helps him dress. Ellaria has been Oberyn's paramour almost as long as Sansa has been alive, she reminds herself, the shivering fear she feels must only be a shadow to that of Ellaria, and of his daughters.

The palace is noisy with the other soldiers preparing for their departure, saying their goodbyes to loved ones, joking around so that their laughter may loosen the tension humming in their limbs.

Jon is nowhere to be found, although the dragons are still here in the training ground, so he must be somewhere. Sansa is just about to leave her rooms to start searching the palace for him, her heart fluttering nervously in her chest, when he appears on her balcony.

"Jon," she says with a relieved smile, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

"Sansa," he says sorrowfully.

"Don't say my name like that," she begs, "like you'll never say it again."

"Sansa," he says again, with one of his downturned smiles, walking closer to her. He studies her, drinking her in, and cups a warm hand behind her neck.

"You'll be careful, won't you, Jon?" she asks, eyes roaming his face. He is so dear to her, this brother turned cousin, this protector of hers. "We're the last ones left, and you can't leave me on my own," she says, biting back a sob.

He squeezes her neck gently. "You won't be alone, sweet girl," he murmurs, "you'll have Ellaria and Oberyn and the Sand Snakes, and Dorne itself. I won't swear to you that I will return, because I cannot make such an oath, but I will do my very best, I will fight with everything I have, to save Westeros and to come back to you."

"And in one piece," she says, smiling through tears.

"Aye," he says and then kisses her forehead, his beard brushing against her skin.

He moves his head a little back, his eyes slide to her mouth, and she watches as his breath catches. "Sansa," he whispers, and then he kisses her, and she gasps, and his tongue slips along her lower lip, startling a jolt through her, and then he steps back.

She stands there, shocked to silence.

"I won't apologise for that," he says gruffly, "but when I get back, feel free to slap me for it." He smiles a sad little smile. "Sansa," he says again, as if her name is a talisman.

"Jon–"

He meets her eyes, nods, and then walks away.

As she stands there, she prays that this will not be the last time she ever sees him, that he did not kiss her because he thinks he will not return.

An hour later – when the boats have been loaded with the Dornish soldiers, with Daemon and Ghost, and Daenerys's advisors and armies have returned to their own boats, with the crowds of Sunspear at the harbour to see them all off – Sansa and Ellaria wait on the balcony where they once watched Jon and Oberyn spar so many moons ago.

Jon, Daenerys, and Oberyn walk out onto the field, towards the dragons who are whining their impatience. They are wearing their own particular armour of choice - Oberyn in his usual leathers; Jon's new armour with the head of a wolf on his breastplate and the curl of a snake on each shoulder, with the favour Sansa has embroidered hidden somewhere out of view; and Daenerys in her striking white furs. As they stand before the beasts, Oberyn and Jon put on their own fur cloaks, a strange sight to see in Dorne, readying themselves for the cold winds high in the sky and the frigid winter of the North. Daenerys climbs up Drogon and Jon climbs up Rhaegal, pulling Oberyn up behind him.

And then, as Sansa and Ellaria watch, the dragons take flight, their wings beating great gusts of wind, lifting a cloud of sand, and they fly up above Sunspear, up into the sky until they look like only birds, and then they turn for the North and disappear into the horizon.

"Oberyn has always liked a dramatic exit," Ellaria muses, and the two women laugh, their tears of fear mixing with tears of mirth.

It is strange to go about her life - her warm, comfortable life - in Dorne while a battle rages for the very future of Westeros beyond the Wall, while those she loves are suffering and battling against deadly odds. It makes every moment of her life feel weighted, precious.

Sansa takes a new interest in life at the palace, shadowing the castellan Ser Manfrey Martell and his wife Dyanna, speaking with Prince Doran's seneschal, Ricasso, and Sunspear's treasurer, Alyse Ladybright. She offers her services to Prince Doran, copying out letters and deciphering ravens, lending a listening ear and putting to use all the diplomatic knowledge that Petyr taught her in the Vale.

She and Ellaria spend time with Princess Arianne and the remaining Sand Snakes, touring the city and its environs with them, meeting with Martell bannermen, giving out alms to those in need, and having long wine-soaked dinners of womanly gossip and laughter. It is like having her own passel of sisters, Sansa thinks, and sometimes, especially when she watches the ferocity of their training with spears and daggers and whips on the training ground, her grief for Arya brings tears to her eyes.

Arianne, who has the intensity of her uncle and the cunning of her father, successfully bullies Sansa into training with her own weapon - a bow that Oberyn secretly had made for her and set aside, and which makes her cry when she first holds it in her hands. Although Sansa prefers to imagine that she will use her arrows to hunt deer or desert hares on some bucolic future trip with Oberyn and Jon, rather than to defend against other men or the dead.

Winter has arrived, but a Dornish winter feels like spring and the only concessions the inhabitants of Sunspear make are to close the windows of bedchambers at night and to carry a light scarf to dinner. Crops still grow without the need for glass gardens and Sansa takes an interest in farming, especially the famed orchards of Sunspear - blood oranges, lemons, olives, figs, dates, apricots, and pomegranates - taking several trips out to the Greenblood river to visit the larger orchards and pluck ripe fruit straight from the trees.

At night, she often shares Ellaria's bed, to make love or just to hold one another and sleep, but she shies away from Ellaria's invitations to share a man between them or visit one of Sunspear's brothels. Oberyn is the only man she wants, she explains to Ellaria.

But is she lying to herself, Sansa wonders.

She is unsure whether it is because of that kiss before he left, or something latent, some further twist in the gods' plans for her, but she has started to dream of Jon, and they are not familial dreams.

At first, she did not know the identity of the shadowy figure in her dreams, with his dark eyes, firm hands, and drugging kisses, she only knew that it was not the familiar form of Oberyn. But some moons after her dreams begin, when she is used to waking up warm, and sometimes wet between her thighs, she realises that it is Jon she dreams of.

She broods on it by herself; sharing her dreams, her new thoughts, with no one. Not because she is ashamed, but because she wants to be sure that it is not just some odd fantasy her mind is conjuring up, that she is missing the touch of a man and Oberyn as a lover, and missing Jon as a brother-cousin, and her mind is confusing the two.

She tests herself, thinking of Jon and his body, his hands, the memory of his full lips on hers, as she touches herself in her bed or in a long, steamy bath. She considers the noble men who attend dinners at the palace, and the handsome smallfolk she sees on the streets, asking herself if she desires them, or whether she is still trying to protect herself by only allowing herself to be attracted to those who are familiar and safe. She shared a bedroll with Jon for many moons on their journey to Dorne after all, perhaps she is only remembering how it felt to lie beside a warm body and her latent ardour is doing the rest.

She will not know for certain if she desires him until she sees him again in front of her, and can study the reactions of her body to his appearance, to his smell, to the feeling of his arms wrapped around her.

She knows that she should discuss it with Ellaria, for the older woman has many years experience with many lovers, but as time passes during the wait for the armies of the living to prevail, Ellaria has her own concerns to deal with. For Oberyn has left something precious behind, a babe in Ellaria's belly. It was a surprise, for Ellaria believed herself too old to conceive, though she has not stopped her courses yet. And perhaps as a result of her age, the pregnancy is hard on her, and the maesters and wise women are called out often to help soothe her pains and sickness.

Sansa is a helpmate to Ellaria, massaging her limbs, bathing her, experimenting with different foods that might ease her nausea, singing songs and playing her harp to distract her from her pain. She does not have many memories of her mother's own pregnancies, of seeing her bare belly or being aware of her body changing, so she is fascinated by watching Ellaria's stomach grow round and taut enough to see and feel the babe inside turning and kicking.

Ellaria hopes that Oberyn will return in time for the birth but it is not to be, and it is Sansa and the Sand Snakes who attend her birth instead. After a difficult pregnancy, the birth itself is very quick, almost too quick, for Ellaria vomits into a basin only a few moments after she has greeted her new daughter and passed her to her sisters to hold, her body catching up with what it has just done.

"Ellaria has the fastest births I have ever seen in all my days," the wise women attending remarks to Sansa, "she should not be taken as a guide for other women, like yourself."

"She is a busybody but the best at births," Ellaria says drowsily once the woman has left to find more hot water. Ellaria is holding her daughter in her arms again, rocking her gently as the babe blinks at the brightness of the world. "You should have one," she adds dreamily, "Oberyn makes the most beautiful babes."

Sansa brushes the tuft of hair on the babe's head. "I should like that," she admits. "I want a family of my own."

"My family is your family, our family," Ellaria says, leaning her head back on the pillows she is propped up against.

"Have you thought of a name?"

"I have," Ellaria says with a smile. "I should like to name this babe after someone dear to myself and Oberyn, someone who has earned it by rubbing my sore back for many moons, I shall name her Sansya."

Sansya is three moons old when the ravens arrive heralding the defeat of the White Walkers and the imminent return of the men of Dorne.

"You will love your father," Sansa tells her namesake as they walk the palace, trailing behind Ellaria and Ser Manfrey Martell who are preparing the palace for the soldiers' return, wanting it to look at its best. "He has strong arms to hold you, and an interesting face to look at, and a laugh that will make you laugh too. He will protect you with everything he has, and then teach you to protect yourself when you are old enough, sweet babe."

Sansya burbles in her arms and stretches out her hands, as if grasping for this mythical father she has not yet met.

"And you will meet Jon too, the man they call The Prince Who Was Promised, who is my cousin, and your parents' lover. He has been riding a dragon at the Wall, do you know what a dragon is?"

Ellaria returns from her tour of the great hall. "What stories are you telling her?" she asks, as Sansa hands the hungry babe back to its mother to feed.

"I was telling her about Jon, and his dragon riding."

"Jon, hmm?" Ellaria says, looking down at her babe, adjusting her position in her arms. "Did you tell her about how handsome he is, his broad shoulders and sullen pout?" Her eyes flick up to Sansa.

"I don't know what you mean," Sansa says, fiddling with the ends of her hair.

"They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder," she remarks, as she shifts Sansya upright to burp her.

"Maybe so," Sansa says, trying to ignore the simmer of excitement she has felt since learning about Jon's imminent return.

She may not want him when he is in front of her, she reminds herself, he may not want her anymore. Perhaps war has changed him, and he only wants them to be cousins now, perhaps he has found someone else to love, some warrior who fought alongside him.

Do not get your hopes up, she tells herself as she works on the final embroidery of the dress she will wear to greet the returning heroes, and you will not be disappointed. It is enough that he and Oberyn have survived, that they will return unharmed.

And is it not greedy to want for more when she already has Oberyn and Ellaria as lovers?

How she has missed Oberyn and his wicked smile, the words he murmurs into her ear when he takes her, the feeling of laying with him and Ellaria together, of being safe and loved between them.

*

Jon never imagined that he would have to return to the Wall, to the place of his death and resurrection, that he would have to sleep inside the squalid, haunted walls of Castle Black again, and lead the Night's Watch again into battle.

Was I ever even resurrected? he thinks on the darkest days of battle - when good men have been lost, when the armies of the dead seem endless, when he has been bruised and battered fighting against them. Is this just some strange hell, and his life in Dorne but a dream? Will he ever see his adopted homeland again - sit out on a balcony in the sun, feast on ripe blood oranges and sharp cheeses and quench his thirst with the thickest of wines, go riding in the desert with Ghost beside him and the sun blazing a path ahead of him. Will he ever see Ellaria, and Sansa, again?

But when these thoughts get darkest, when he feels as if he could lie down in the snows and never get up again, Oberyn is there to console him, and he is there to console Oberyn in turn.

It is only a week after they arrive at Castle Black when Oberyn invites himself to share Jon's bed.

"It's cold," Oberyn remarks, stripping his armour from himself, "but I hear the former Lord Commander, the Prince That Was Promised, has the warmest fire in his rooms."

Jon scoffs tiredly. "Aye, that's what they say. But if you think I have the strength for anything but sleeping-"

Naturally, he is proven wrong when Oberyn sinks to his knees and sucks Jon's cock with such force that he spills within minutes with a strangled groan. Jon then finds some reserve of strength to return the favour, with the calloused grip of his spit-soaked hand on Oberyn's cock.

To sleep alongside another warm human, to fuck and kiss and wrestle, is a reminder of what he is fighting for, a reminder of life. He finds himself thinking of Ygritte here, so close to where he had carried her body to its pyre. He tells Oberyn about her, about her wildness and the scars she left on him, how she almost killed him and how she died because of her love for him, standing still on the battlefield for long enough that Olly's arrow found its way to her heart.

"She sounds like a Dornishwoman," Oberyn says.

"I have come to think that northerners and Free Folk have more in common with the Dornish than anyone else in Westeros," Jon says, lying beside Oberyn.

"And she was your first, girl or boy," Oberyn says, his eyes glinting in the gloom.

"Aye."

"So where did you learn to suck a cock like that?"

Jon sighs and scrubs his face. "One of my stewards was a boy of eighteen whose name was Satin, a pretty boy who was braver than many of the men here, he died a few weeks before we arrived." He shifts his shoulders on the bed. "But he was not where I learned my skills," he adds, unable to prevent a note of self-loathing from entering his voice. "There were many others on the journey south to Dorne. We needed money, supplies, and I did not want to be caught stealing and have the both of us be punished."

"And you did not always hate it, these men and what they had you do for money," Oberyn says knowingly. "And you have never told Sansa what you did to keep her safe."

"I shall never tell her," Jon says. "She does not need to know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. She would only feel responsible. And it does not hurt me so much anymore, what I did. Being with you has helped me," he admits, feeling vulnerable. Oberyn rubs a hand through Jon's hair and Jon tries not to lean into it like Ghost might. "Besides," Jon adds, "there are some things that Sansa will never tell me about her time in the Vale, and I do not want her to feel she has to. We don't have to share everything with the people we love, do we." A statement that comes out more like a question.

"Ellaria does not know everything about my life before her, this is true. But she would understand, Sansa, if you ever wanted to tell her."

"I know," Jon says. "She is too kind to me."

"Nonsense," Oberyn says, shaking Jon's shoulder. "You are a sullen fellow Jon Snow. Or should it be Jaehaerys Targaryen?"

Jon laughs tiredly. "Jon Snow is fine." The maelstrom of his feelings about his parentage feel muted here when set against the great war. He is just a body, a man, he cares not who his father might be, only what his arms can do with a sword, and no one else cares one fig either, except perhaps for his new aunt and her advisors. "Daenerys says she will name me Jon Stark when this war is over," he says.

"She does not want any pretenders to her throne."

"She can have her throne. I do not want it."

"You would prefer to take the name Stark through marriage, no doubt," Oberyn says slyly.

"I am happy with my lot. I shall be happier still when this war is over and I can return to Dorne."

"Aye," Oberyn says and Jon hits him on the arm at his mockery. "Me too."

Some had believed that the three dragons, with Daenerys riding one and Jon another, would mean that the war would be over in days, that their dragonfire would burn the whole army to cinders. But the White Walkers and the dead are not so easily vanquished.

The dead attack the Wall in waves, trying to fight their way through the tunnels or clamber over the top, and since the maesters say that dragonfire, when concentrated, might burn through the Wall itself, the dragons have to keep their distance and let men and their human weapons defend the Wall when the armies get close enough, and instead try and pick off the crowds who swarm across the snows further away. Besides, as fast as they fly, dragons cannot patrol every part of the Wall. The armies Daenerys has brought with her, and those from Westeros who have come North to lend their aid, along with the remaining Free Folk, help to man the Shadow Tower and Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and ten other castles along the Wall, with camps built in the frozen snow outside the keeps to hold the extra men.

Jon rides Rhaegal, and he and Daenerys, along with the riderless Viserion, are the only ones who venture beyond the Wall to attack the standing armies of the dead, sending dragonfire through their number, razing them to ash. Riding a dragon is not something that will ever become commonplace to him, Jon thinks, it will always be frightening and thrilling and otherworldly.

He also helps to man the Wall alongside Ghost, fighting with Longclaw, with flaming arrows, and catapults, alongside Oberyn who has created a flaming whip that makes any newer soldiers around him nervous until they see the precision of his aim and watch the dead catch alight and fall to their deaths before they can clamber over the ramparts.

When he is not on watch, meeting with commanders, touring the armoury and other keeps, fucking Oberyn and sleeping alongside him with Ghost warming their feet, helping to train any new recruits who arrive, or speaking with Sam about things he has learned from his books, Jon meets occasionally with Daenerys and her advisors - Tyrion, Missandei, Jorah and Grey Worm, but not Melisandre for the red priestess walked beyond the Wall and disappeared during the first weeks of battle. He does not enjoy their talk of politics, of trading and alliances, of the Iron Throne and the human future of Westeros. He wants to leave them to it, especially once he has heard enough from them to know that they have the smallfolk's interests at heart, that they will be far better rulers than the ones that have come before.

Daenerys shares more about the Targaryens with him but many things he learns unsettle him further, not least their history of incest. Rhaegar seems like a tragic hero from a song in Daenerys's telling, far removed from the man of flesh and blood Jon knows he must have been to run away with his mother. And Daenerys does not know any more than he has already learned from Myria about Lyanna's last few moons.

Now that it is known who Jon's parents were, he has many people coming to him to share their stories of Lyanna and Rhaegar, and to size him up, he knows, to speak with the heir to the Iron Throne, and he must tell them repeatedly that it is Daenerys who will rule, for she has earned it, she has the armies and the experience and the desire to rule. Jon is a man who has died and come back to life, a man who does not wish to rule but only to rest.

When some of his men inform Jon, one dark morning many moons into the war, that Benjen has presented himself at the outside of the tunnel through the Wall, he grips Longclaw tightly and asks Oberyn to come with him, Ghost snarling ahead of them, as he makes his way through the tunnel, the reminder of his murder an unwelcome one. But it is not Benjen he finds when the gate is raised, but a girl wearing furs and a familiar boy sitting in a sledge.

Benjen has gone ranging again, this young man with Bran's face tells them.

"Bran," Jon says disbelievingly, helping to drag the sledge inside.

"Hello, Jon," he replies with an impish smile, and Jon clutches him in a tight hug while Ghost tries to lick his face.

"This is Meera Reed," Bran says.

"It's nice to meet you," Jon says, dazed by the reappearance of his cousin.

"This is my cousin Jon, or Jaehaerys Targaryen to be more precise," Bran says.

"How do you know that?" Jon asks, as he and Oberyn move Bran through the tunnel.

"He knows lots of things," Meera says, her voice strangely sad.

When they have got Bran into the castle and found him a bath, warm clothes, and a bed, Jon sits near him and listens to Bran's tale, to the things he has seen and done. Bran says that he is the Three-Eyed Raven and that he can see all that has happened, everywhere, and that he can enter the minds of large numbers of animals, that he believes he can also control large numbers of the dead.

He tells Jon too that Rhaegar had taken a second wife, and married Lyanna secretly, that they seemed happy on their wedding day.

Maybe they were happy, maybe they were in love, but Rhaegar still left Lyanna at the tower, while war raged and her father and brother died, left her there to birth his son alone and die so far from home.

"And can you see the future?" Jon asks, late in the night when his mind is spinning with everything he has learned.

"No," Bran says.

"Good," Jon says, "I have had enough of prophecies."

With Bran on their side, the tide of the war turns, as he corrals great swathes of the army of the dead for the dragons to burn to ash. The armies of man are winning.

Meanwhile, news reaches them of a massacre at Winterfell, of the expulsion of the Boltons, and of the arrival at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea of a boy rumoured to be Rickon Stark, accompanied by a feral direwolf. Bran says it is true, that the boy he sees swaddled in furs, with tangled hair down his shoulders, is Ned Stark's youngest son, and Jon aches to journey to meet him, but before he can, he must make a final stand against the Night King.

Dragonfire takes care of the last White Walkers but it is down to Jon, Longclaw in hand, to vanquish the Night King, in a brutal final fight that brings Jon to his knees before he rears up and pierces the monster's chest, shattering him into shards of ice. Jon cannot stand afterwards, and it is Rhaegal who tenderly lifts him up in his claws and flies him back to Castle Black, where Jon falls into a stupor for the rest of the day, reviving to the feeling of Oberyn's arms around him and Ghost warm at his feet.

"It is done," Oberyn says.

But Jon's responsibilities in the North are not yet over. While Daenerys and her armies take stock and plan their advance south to take King's Landing, Jon, Bran and Meera, and what remains of the northern armies who have been fighting at the Wall, alongside the Dornish army under Oberyn's command, head to Winterfell, arriving just after Rickon does.

The Bolton's were poisoned at a feast, the surviving servants say, just like the Frey's, and the man who did it has disappeared. Bran says he is ready to take his place as Lord of Winterfell, and Jon is in attendance at Bran's wedding to Meera in the godswood, with Rickon standing quietly by Jon's side while Shaggydog races around the woods.

Jon stays at Winterfell for several weeks, as the Stark bannermen pledge themselves to Bran and the keep is cleared of all Bolton effects, as feasts are held and rebuilding begins. He spends his days with his cousins, finding out more about Rickon's time on Skagos, telling him stories about the siblings and parents he has forgotten.

One morning, Jon finds Bran in the godswood in his chair, communing with the heart tree.

"You are going to ask me if I want you to stay," Bran says when Jon is still some distance away, "if I think you should remain here with Rickon and myself."

"I thought you couldn't see the future?" Jon says, boots making tracks through the snow.

"I can't, but I know you, Jon. You feel responsible, but you shouldn't. I have the support I need here, and I'm ready. Go south, Jon. Go home to Dorne, and Sansa. You've done enough."

The next morning, Daenerys's armies pass Winterfell and after Bran has pledged himself to her cause, Jon tells her he needs to borrow Rhaegal for a day or two.

"You are his rider, you don't need to borrow him," she tells him.

"He belongs with the other two dragons, with you and your fight for the Iron Throne. What would I do with a dragon in Dorne?"

"You will stay in Dorne then," she says, her violet eyes searching his face. "You do not wish to be part of my court."

"Gods, no," Jon says. "Besides, they would use me as a weapon against you, and I have had enough of scheming."

"Godspeed then, Jaeherys," she says and hugs him. He marvels again at the strength this slim woman emanates, the force of her convictions. He does not envy her the task of uniting the Seven Kingdoms behind her, of undoing all the damage the mad queen and the Lannisters have done.

Jon says his goodbyes and climbs on Rhaegal's back, eager to leave the frigid northern winter for the warmth of the south. Oberyn will be travelling by boat, accompanying Daemon who had been injured saving Oberyn during one of the last fights on top of the Wall, along with Ghost, the Sand Snakes, and the Dornish army.

Winterfell disappears into the distance behind him and quicker than seems possible, the lands of Westeros speed past, the fields and keeps and villages and plains and forests and rocky scrags.

When they fly past the Dornish marches and the Red mountains, Jon feels a warmth spread through him, and Rhaegal seems to understand his rider's joy too because he shrieks excitedly. It is not just that he is nearing Sansa, and Ellaria, and the familiar palace of Sunspear, but that Dorne has become a true home to him, a place where he feels comfortable, a place that he loves and that seems to love him in return.

As Rhaegal circles Sunspear, looking for somewhere to land, Jon finds himself searching for a flash of red hair, even though he knows he is too far away to make out a person standing on one of the many balconies.

A cloud of dust and sand is brought up by Rhaegal's wings as he lands in the training ground exactly where he set off from many moons ago.

Jon jumps down from the dragon, which flies off once he is only a few steps away, keen to hunt for a southron meal of well-fed beasts, and by the time the dust has cleared, Jon can see two familiar shapes waiting for him by the edge of the field. Two and a half shapes, he corrects as he runs over to see Sansa with her arm around Ellaria who holds a little babe in her arms.

He embraces them all, almost laughing with happiness, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Let me look at you," he says, holding his hands on Sansa's shoulders, studying her face to look for new freckles and then hugging her again.

"Ellaria," he says, a hand at her back. "I bring apologies from Oberyn that he will take a few weeks to return-"

Ellaria nods, wiping the tears from her cheeks, her smile broad. "I know, a raven came a few hours ago. Daemon has got himself injured and Oberyn feels responsible and won't leave his side, I would expect nothing less from him."

"He'll recover completely," Jon says, "he saved Oberyn's life." But he does not want to talk about injuries, and battles, and life at the Wall. "And who is this?" he asks softly, touching his hand to the black tuft of hair on the babe's head. The babe who is staring up at him with big, dark eyes. Oberyn's eyes.

"This is little Sansya," Ellaria says. Jon glances over at Sansa who is smiling shyly.

"Her idea, not mine," Sansa says, "I did check that she was sure once she had recovered from her birthing haze."

"Sansya," Jon says, "a pretty name for a pretty babe," and he chucks Oberyn's newest daughter underneath her milky chin, as the babe and the grown-up Sansa both laugh.

"I taught you that, do you remember?" Sansa says. "To complement a woman's name."

"Aye, I remember," Jon says and clutches Sansa in another hug, breathing in her familiar smell.

"You both – you three – are a sight for sore eyes," he says.

"As are you," Ellaria says. "The Prince Who Was Promised returned to us."

Jon sighs wearily. "I'm not a prince, just a tired man in need of a bath."

"I was going to say something about the smell-" Sansa teases and he grabs her round the shoulders and shakes her as she smiles at him, her eyes the blue of the Dornish sky that he had so longed for.

Later, once he has eaten his weight in rich Dornish food, and downed a few cups of its best wine while listening to Ellaria and Sansa tell him all he has missed in Sunspear, and spoken with them about the miraculous reappearance of Bran and Rickon; once he taken a long, hot bath and changed into his comfortable Dornish clothes; he wanders around his rooms, touching furniture and lanterns and fabrics as if he is trying to make sure he is not dreaming.

A knock on the door and then Sansa sweeps inside the room, smiling when she sees him.

"There you are," she says, coming closer, "I was wondering who was hiding underneath all that dirt. Although I see you haven't done anything about this terrible beard yet," she says, tugging it and wrinkling her nose. "You need a trim, sit down on the couch."

"Now?" he asks, putting up a token resistance, and settles himself back on the comfortable couch - and did he not dream of a couch like this up at the Wall, of silken cushions and a velvet seat.

Sansa asks a servant for two bowls of hot water and a sharp blade, and she retrieves her golden sewing scissors and a silver comb, along with two soft towels, setting everything down on the little table by the couch. Jon watches her as if mesmerized, drinking in every little movement, every shifting expression.

Finally she is ready, the servant has left them, and the room is quiet but for the soft susurration of the silk curtain waving in the warm breeze from the balcony outside, the air smelling of the oils Sansa has poured into one of the bowls.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Do your worst," he says, tilting his face up and closing his eyes.

She washes his beard with soft fingers, and he tries not to make any noises of pleasure. It is wrong to say that he has not been touched the moons he spent apart from her, for he and Oberyn have fucked and kissed and held each other, but there is something about the tender touches of a woman that cores him.

She combs his beard next, slowly, gently.

"You look like Ghost," she says.

"I would offer to growl if it did not make you laugh," he says as she wipes the comb and picks up her scissors. "I do not want to make you laugh with scissors in your hand."

"Very wise, for I could slip and cut it all off."

He leans back jokingly. "I'd like to have some beard left."

"You will, I've grown fond of your beard," she says and he tries not to smile like a proud little boy.

She trims his beard next, the hair dropping into a towel on his lap, and then soaps the edges of his beard, on his neck and his cheeks, and lifts up the blade.

"Have you used that before?" he asks, pretending to be worried.

"I have actually, in the Vale," she says, looking away from him. "Sorry," she says.

"Don't apologise," he says, reaching out his hands to squeeze her hips. He does not want her to ever feel ashamed about her past, the things she might have done, the person she thinks she was. "I'm only glad you've had practise and are not going to slit my throat."

"I'll do my best," she murmurs and sets the blade to his cheek, scraping his skin carefully, her forehead frowning.

You are so beautiful, he wants to say. How is it possible that you are even more beautiful now than you were when I left? He feels an echo of the ache in his chest he felt before, a grief that he will never be with Sansa like a lover might, but it has been somewhat lessened by the horrors he experienced at the Wall, his knowledge of how fragile life is, how wonderful it is to be close to her at all, to be her family.

He forgets to take his hands back from her hips, and they stay there throughout her work with the blade and another quick trim with her scissors. Beneath his hands, he can feel the ways her muscles are moving, the twist of her hipbones. His cock thickens in his breeches but he ignores it.

Finally, she rubs a fragrant oil through his beard and moustache, her fingers tripping over his lips and making him chuckle, and then she is finished.

She keeps her hands on the sides of his face and looks down at him, her legs pressing against his knees. She brushes the fingers of her right hand down his cheek, making him shiver, as she stares at him. What does she see, what is she looking for?

"Sansa–" he says, and she kisses him.

Chapter Text

Jon startles for one moment as Sansa kisses him, and then he gathers his wits and kisses her back, his hand cupping the back of her neck, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth, tasting her and swallowing the gorgeous little noises she is making.

"Sansa-" he gasps, and she falls onto his lap and he pulls her towards him, feeling her body pressed against his. He tilts her head and sucks at her lips, trying not to bite her like he wants, to devour her.

"Jon-" she moans, clutching at his back.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?" he asks, smearing his lips across to her neck, sucking at her, setting his teeth gently to her jaw and then returning to her mouth to lick across her teeth and suck at her tongue.

"If you are, then so am I. I dreamed of you, Jon," she pants, shifting to kiss his cheek, his neck, her fingers tugging at his hair.

His hands slide across her back. He is hard in his breeches and he knows she can feel it.

"What did I do in these dreams?" he asks, and then kisses her before she can answer, one of his hands threading through her hair, and the other clutching at the meat of her hip.

"You kissed me-"

"Like this?" he murmurs, kissing her softly, teasingly.

"No, deeper," she says with a smile, and he does as she commands.

"What else did I do?" he asks, his lips already swollen. He wants to kiss her until it hurts to kiss any longer, until he cannot breathe.

"You touched me," she says, "here-" she brings his hand to one of her teats, and he squeezes it and groans.

"Where else?" he asks, sucking at her neck, pulling a bruise to the surface of her pale skin.

"Here," she says, and moves his other hand down between her legs.

"Here, sweet girl?" he asks, his hand cupping her mound through her dress, making her hips twitch towards him. "Gods, Sansa."

"The bed-" she says, her arms around his shoulders.

He picks her up by her hips as she wraps her legs around him and he staggers over to the bed, almost tripping over a table in his excitement, and she lands with a gasping giggle.

He stands there a moment to look at her, her pink cheeks and reddened lips, her heaving chest, her body in those glorious Dornish silks.

"You want this, with me?" he asks.

"Yes," she says, nodding, "yes," and he crawls up over her.

"I've wanted this forever," he says quietly, avoiding her gaze as he kisses her shoulder.

She tugs his face to meet hers. "I know," she says softly, stroking a hand over his head. She nods, and he closes his eyes for a moment, feeling a brief flare of shame, before it is washed away by another kiss from her soft lips.

"Your hair-" she says, pulling the leather band from it and sinking her fingers into his curls.

"You like my hair?" he murmurs, his hands cupping her teats through her dress.

"I do," she says, arching her chest.

"I like these," he says, plucking her nipples, and setting his mouth to them, sucking at her through the silk as she moans and wriggles.

"Take it off," she gasps, holding her arms up, and he gets up on his knees to tug her dress off, his fingers tearing some of the seams in his haste.

She lies there in only her smallclothes and he stares at her hotly, eyes roaming her pale skin.

"Now take yours off," she says, with a lift of her chin. He likes how unashamed she is in her nakedness. He likes that he can see that the flush on her cheeks spreads all the way down to her chest.

"As my lady commands," he says, stripping off his tunic and then tugging down his breeches and smallclothes too.

He tries not to preen or pose as she bites her lip at the sight of his cock. He leans over to kiss her teats, to suck at them, and then to kiss all the way down her stomach, to bite at her hipbones, before pulling off her smallclothes and spreading her legs in front of him, grunting at the sight of her cunt glistening in the afternoon light.

"Gods, you've a pretty cunt, Sansa."

She squeaks and covers her face with her hands, and then peeks through her fingers, as he sets his mouth to it, groaning at the sour-sweet taste. He works his tongue, his lips, slowly, circling her little bud, tasting every inch of her. He brings a hand up to stretch her with his fingers, feeling how hot she is inside, how tight.

She peaks with a moan, clutching his head and squirming as he keeps his mouth there, determined to have her peak again. She does, and he holds her thighs apart as they spasm.

"Jon-" she whines, "please."

He pushes himself up on his hands and shifts up the bed. Her hair is tangled about on the pillow, her body glowing, her eyes dazed and damp.

"I don't know how long I'll last once I'm inside of you," he admits, stroking a hand down her side, squeezing the soft flesh of her hips, his cock rubbing against her cunt.

"This is only the first time of many, we can practise until we're perfect at it," she says breathlessly.

"I will spend many diligent hours supping at your cunt, practising, if that is what you wish," he says, smiling so widely it hurts.

"It is," she says with a smile, her hips arching. "Please, Jon," she says again.

He takes his cock in his hand, sliding it down her slit and notching it in place. He groans when he finally thrusts inside of her, his hips stuttering, mouthing at her neck as he presses his body over hers, lifting her legs around his hips.

"Oh gods," she gasps as he begins to thrust.

He has the benefit of having seen her with Oberyn, so he knows what she likes, hard and slow.

"Fuck-" he grunts as his pelvis smacks against hers, as her cunt squeezes him. "You're so tight, Sansa," he says, "so hot."

She whines, and her head tips back on the pillow.

"You're so good, Sansa," he says, one of his hands clutching the back of her neck as the other slides under her body to grab her arse, to pull her into him. "Perfect."

After a few more deep thrusts, he feels her flutter and peak around him, writhing gloriously as he pins her hips with his hands, fingers digging into the skin.

He speeds up, pressing one palm against the headboard of the bed, and holding the other arm around her shoulders, tugging her down to meet his thrusts as she wails. He spills with a wrenching groan and then fumbles a thumb down to her nub, circling it messily until she peaks one last time, her whole body jerking and shivering. He drops his head to the side and kisses her shoulder softly.

She breathes out in a shudder and then laughs.

He props himself up on his hands and looks at her, his mouth quirked in a smile. "What are you laughing about, sweet girl?"

Her hips flex around him. "I was comparing how you felt, inside."

"To Oberyn? Terrible girl," he says with a smile, shaking his head. "You're lucky that I have lain with him and that I know exactly how our cocks compare."

He feels a last flutter of her cunt around his softening cock.

"You like that, do you? The idea of the both of us together?"

She blushes and bites her lip.

"Maybe you'll get to see it, one of these days. I like the thought of you with him too, with Ellaria, with both of them. What do you think?" he asks, slipping from her and lying beside her, gathering her into his arms.

"I should like that too," she says, nodding, kissing his chest where she is draped over him.

"Do as the Dornish do?" he says.

"Yes," she says, with a pleased little smile.

They doze for a few hours, rousing to kiss each other, to murmur sweet words, and then they get dressed for the small feast to welcome Jon home.

He cannot stop himself from smiling, from holding Sansa's hand during dinner, from staring at her dreamily.

"It is admirable of you to drag yourself out of bed to join the feast in your honour," Ellaria says wryly to Jon, as desserts are brought out and he accidentally smears honey down his tunic because he is watching Sansa suck the juices of an orange from her fingers.

"I'm sorry if we are distracted," Sansa says, looking chastened.

"Do not apologise, dear one," Ellaria says, reaching across the table to squeeze Sansa's hand. "I'm so thrilled for the both of you."

Sansa leans forward to speak more quietly. "Jon and I were speaking about you and Oberyn, and us."

"All in good time," Ellaria says. "I shall let you two have your celebrations first, and let you have the full force of his stamina, Sansa."

Sansa looks at Jon from under her eyelashes. Jon's cock twitches in his breeches and he coughs on his wine.

Ellaria laughs. "I will not expect you at breakfast for the next few weeks."

"You should, for we shall need the sustenance," Sansa says slyly.

Jon leans over and kisses her neck. He is so happy he could burst, and still not quite sure that he is not dreaming.

After they have gorged on fruits and drained many cups of wine, the drums are brought out and the feasters take to the dancefloor. Sansa makes Jon take a turn around the dancefloor with each of Tyene, Obella, Dorea, and little Loreza whose feet he places on his feet so he can twirl her around and make her laugh. Sansa dances with Ellaria and then sits back down and watches Jon, sipping on more wine, and his eyes are drawn to her constantly. To think that after this feast is done, he will take her back to bed; to think that he might share her bed every night, with Ellaria and Oberyn too.

"Are you ready to leave?" he asks Sansa, once the oil is low in the lanterns in the hall.

"Yes," she says, standing up with a scrape of her chair against the floor, and he grabs her hand and pulls her from the room.

They make their way through the arched colonnade and past the central courtyard, before Jon cannot wait any longer and pushes her against a wall, kissing her, sucking the taste of rich spiced wine from her tongue.

He tugs her along the next corridor as she crowds him and bites at his neck, groping his arse, and then he gives in and picks her up, striding back to his room and throwing open the door, turning her around slamming her against it as she twines her legs around his hips and kisses him, moaning into his mouth.

He holds her by the hips, rubbing his cock against her through their clothes, and she sucks at his earlobe. Then he lets her slide down her body and they stagger over to his bed.

He stands behind her, stripping her of her dress, kissing at her neck and her back, holding her arms so she cannot reach back and distract him. Then she bends over the bed and he groans at the sight of her plump arse in the air. He strips himself distractedly and kneels behind her, lifting her by the hips, spreading her thighs and putting his mouth to her cunt, sucking at her hungrily as she squirms and gasps.

He pushes her up the bed and she turns onto her back and swipes her hair away from her face. "Jon-" she pleads.

"I know," he says, clambering over her, "you want it, don't you, sweet girl."

"Yes," she says, her voice turning into a whine as he fits his cock to her cunt and thrusts inside of her.

He moves her hands above her head and grabs her wrists in one fist, as she whimpers and squirms. He grits his teeth at the picture she makes beneath him, at the way he has pinned her down for him to take, as he thrusts, and pinches at her nipples with his free hand and then strokes at her nub, murmuring filthy things to her, telling her she is a sweet girl, a lovely girl.

After she peaks, and he has spilled inside of her, he takes his hand back and strokes at the red marks on her wrists, bringing them to his mouth to kiss.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. "It was perfect."

"You're perfect," he says and kisses her, their breath sour with wine and exertion.

"I need a bath," she says, stretching her arms.

"Alright," he says and then picks her up, shrieking, and staggers to the bath in the next room.

*

When the Dornish armies return, with Oberyn and a healing Daemon, Sunspear celebrates with a feast the likes of which Sansa has yet to experience. The bread ovens of the city churn out thousands of loaves, paid for by the palace, and wine is distributed to every quarter, the air is thick with the smell of roasting meats and fruits being peeled and baked into pastries and cakes.

The people of Sunspear throng the streets as the armies make their way up from the harbour through the shadow city and the Threefold Gate, throwing dried flower petals over them which flutter down into a carpet of many colours underneath the hooves of the horses and the feet of the soldiers.

Inside the palace itself, the air is thick with cooking smells and sweet incense; and lanterns light every corridor, colonnade, and courtyard; fresh flowers garland walls and tables and floors. Musicians play in the great hall, where there is a forest of tables and chairs, and in the other halls and rooms too, as every soldier, along with their families and loved ones, finds a seat and a plate of food before them.

Sansa has embroidered a new dress, with golden suns and snakes in Oberyn's honour. She teases Jon that Oberyn will not be so impatient as to tear this one, like Jon did with the dress she had made for his own homecoming.

Jon looks both bashful and proud at her words. Sansa had thought that she knew all there was to know about Jon, all his emotions and moods, but she is finding that he is quite different as a lover, that there is still more to learn about him.

That they are lovers now feels wondrous, and natural, and she cannot remember how it felt to see him only as a brother. He is even sweeter to her now, so sweet it sometimes makes her want to cry; and in bed - and in the bath, against the wall, on a couch or on the floor - he is insatiable, his hunger for her bottomless. She has permanent marks on her neck from his mouth, on her wrists and hips from his hands, and burns from his beard on her face and thighs. And in return, he has her bite marks on his neck and on his hips.

When Oberyn clatters into the palace on his sand steed and dismounts, Ellaria leaps into his arms and he clutches her tightly to him, murmuring in her ear. Sansa watches as Tyene brings Sansya forward to introduce the babe to his father, and when Oberyn lifts the babe up tears stream down his face and he cradles her to him so tenderly it makes Sansa cry too, Jon squeezing his arm around her shoulders.

"And where is her namesake?" Oberyn asks, when he has peppered Sansya with kisses and returned her to her mother's arms. "Where is Sansa? And Jon?"

Sansa runs across to him and he lifts her up, laughing happily, as she squeezes her arms around his shoulders and breathes in his familiar smell. He kisses her and then sets her down. He clasps a hand on Jon's shoulder and then embraces him, cupping the back of his neck. And then Ghost appears, having been distracted on his journey through the city by a stolen feast of roast meat, and he almost knocks Jon over with his excitement.

"I see you two have not wasted any time," Oberyn says to Sansa later, as they sit down at the head table of the feast, and Jon kisses the back of Sansa's hand and then pours her some wine.

"She made her move the same day I returned," Jon says.

"How could I not?" Sansa says. "When he returned on the back of a dragon, like some hero from a song."

Oberyn laughs over the rim of his cup and then sets it down. "I hear your aunt is closing in on King's Landing," he says to Jon.

"Aye, that's what they say."

"And Doran received a raven an hour ago that Cersei is already dead," he adds with a biting smile, as Sansa gasps. "They say that she was poisoned, just like the Frey's and the Bolton's."

Sansa wraps her arms around herself as Jon strokes her head. "I can't believe it," she says.

"I hope she suffered," Oberyn says darkly. "As she and her family have made so many suffer."

Sansa wonders how Myrcella must be faring. She has not yet met with Myrcella here in Dorne, because she and her betrothed have been living in the west of the country, at Starfell, hosted by House Dayne. Once Casterly Rock has been taken, Tyrion says that Myrcella and Trystane might live there. Sansa is selfishly pleased that she will not have to share a home with her, for as sweet as she is, she looks so very like her mother.

Prince Doran, who is sitting in pride of place at the head table, is back from his stay at the Water Gardens, though he has now ceded some of his ruling tasks to Arianne, so that she might better prepare to rule when she is older. Who Arianne might marry is a hotly debated topic of gossip, but Ellaria is quite sure that it will be Willas Tyrell. Arianne herself does not seem to be terribly eager to wed, enjoying a passel of lovers to rival Ellaria herself.

The feast is lengthy enough that large swathes of guests fall asleep on couches in the courtyards and side rooms rather than stumbling back to their barracks and lodgings, but there are many still dancing when Jon and Sansa decide to leave.

"We are to bed now," Jon says, resting a hand on Oberyn's shoulder. "Should you like to join us?" he asks, smiling easily.

Jon has told Sansa about how close he Oberyn became at the Wall, and it pleases her greatly. Jon is someone that deserves to be loved by more than one person, she thinks, and there are things that he can get from a man, from Oberyn, that he cannot get from her. And if the thought of the both of them in an intimate embrace also makes her wet between her thighs, then that is only a pleasant extra.

"I should indeed," Oberyn says, wiping wine from his lips with a napkin and standing up. "Ellaria?" he asks, holding out his hand, and then turns back to Jon and Sansa. "I assumed that this invitation was for two-"

"It was," Sansa says, nodding.

"I want to spend some time speaking with Daemon," Ellaria says, kissing Oberyn on his cheek. "I shall join you three later. Keep the bed warm for me," she adds with a wicked smile.

"Oh, we shall, my love," Oberyn says, kissing her deeply.

Sansa shivers with a nervous excitement when Jon and Oberyn both offer their hands. To think that she might lay with them both tonight, have the attention of two such strong men, and then share Ellaria later too—

"Are you well, sweet girl?" Jon teases as they make their way through the lantern-lit corridors to Oberyn's rooms.

Oberyn puts a hot hand to her forehead. "Hmm, she does seem feverish," he says and then bends to kiss her neck, as Jon watches heatedly.

"I am not sure that I shall survive tonight," Sansa says woozily, as Oberyn kisses her and then hands her to Jon, who sucks at her neck while Oberyn opens the door to his bedchamber.

"I have faith in your stamina, Sansa," Oberyn says, lifting her up into his arms, "but you will tell us if you want a break, or to stop, won't you?" he adds, more seriously, as he sets her down on his bed.

"I shall," Sansa says, resting back on her elbows as she watches the two men pour a cup of wine and share it between them.

"I think she wants to see us kiss, Jon. What do you say?"

Jon huffs a breath and kisses him and Sansa feels her cheeks go bright red at the picture they make, their mouths working, their bodies firm and strong.

"There, that's got her warmed up for us," Oberyn says, breaking from the kiss.

"Are you wet for us, sweet girl?" Jon asks, coming to the bed and crawling alongside her, as she feels her heart flutter and grips at the bedsheets with her hands.

Jon starts untying her dress as Oberyn stands at her feet and helps him to pull it down and throw it over his shoulder. Then Jon kneels on the bed and strips his own clothes as Oberyn sets his mouth to her cunt and makes her moan. To have two mouths on her - one between her thighs and the other roaming her breasts - makes her feel like some kind of goddess being worshipped.

Once she has peaked, Oberyn moves up the bed to kiss Jon and – Sansa realises, with a hitch of breath – to share the taste of her with him. "Gods," she whispers and gropes at Oberyn's shoulders, moving in to kiss both of them, laughing at the awkwardness of three people trying to kiss each other at the same time.

She puts a hand to Jon's cock, only to find a larger hand already there, working it tightly and making Jon grunt and dig his own fingers into Sansa's thighs.

"What do you think, Jon," Oberyn asks, "will you hold her from behind while I take her?"

The very thought makes Jon moan and spill messily between them.

"Yes, Sansa?" Oberyn asks her.

"Yes," she says and shuffles around so that Jon is sitting behind her. He sucks at her shoulders, and moulds his hands to her breasts.

She leans back and turns her head to kiss Jon as Oberyn stands up to drink a few more sips of wine. She turns to see him standing there, his cock hard, his muscles gleaming with sweat, looking like some kind of bronzed god.

"You two look good together," Oberyn says as he saunters closer.

Jon puts his arms around her, locking her own arms underneath his, and then fits his hands underneath her knees, pulling her legs up and out, holding her open for Oberyn.

The older man groans as he looks at her cunt, and he crawls up the bed until he can fit his cock in place and thrust into her, his hands reaching behind Jon to pull them both towards him.

Sansa is panting, whining, caught between the both of them as they murmur to her, as they talk with one another about how good she is, how beautiful in her pleasure.

When she peaks, Oberyn holds himself deep and Jon swallows her wails with his mouth, rocking his cock against her back. Oberyn pulls himself out of her to spill on her stomach and Jon reaches a hand to smear it up between her breasts, as she arches her chest.

Then Jon shifts Sansa to the side and the three of them lay in a heap beside one another on the bed, getting their breath back, stretching out their limbs.

A knock on the door heralds Ellaria's arrival at the perfect time, and she smiles as she sees the state of them.

"Tired already?" she asks, untying the clasps of her dress and stepping out of it, naked and lithe.

"Never," Oberyn groans, although his cock has yet to rise again.

"Have you been nice to Jon?" Ellaria says.

"Perhaps we could have been slightly more attentive," Oberyn says, sliding a hand down Jon's chest.

Ellaria kneels by the side of the bed and starts teasing Jon's cock with her mouth, as Sansa whispers in his ear, biting at his earlobe in the way she knows he likes.

They love one another until the dawn arrives, and then they succumb to sleep, the breeze through the shuttered windows soothing their overheated bodies.

When Sansa wakes, there are only three of them abed and the doors to the balcony are open, the curtain billowy in the wind.

She takes a robe from Ellaria's chest and ties it on, picking up her own hairbrush from the table in front of the mirror, and padding outside.

The sun makes her blink, but when her eyes have adjusted, she sees Oberyn, wearing only a loose pair of silken breeches, and singing softly to Sansya in his arms, standing by the edge of the balcony. The city spreads out before them, birds circling around the Tower of the Sun, the hum of market day, and sunlight glittering off the golden roofs.

"It's almost time for her to feed again and I shall have to wake her mother," he says to Sansa. "But she will not be grumpy with you, my little snakeling" he tells the babe, "only me, for waking her up."

Sansa kisses the babe's warm head and then kisses Oberyn's cheek. She leans against the balcony edge, looking out across the city, and beyond, to the boats that journey to and from the horizon.

"I never imagined I should be so happy," she says, "that Jon could be so happy. We can never repay you and Ellaria."

"You forget how much joy you have both brought to our lives, how much joy is yet to come. You will stay here in Dorne, won't you?"

"I cannot return to the North, they still believe that I murdered the heir to the Vale."

"Daenerys will pardon you when she is crowned queen, she has said as much to Jon and I. And if you were free to return, would you go?" he asks, shifting Sansya in his arms.

"No," she says softly. "I wish to stay here, in Sunspear, in Dorne." She starts to brush out last night's tangles in her hair, looking away from Oberyn's piercing gaze. "I feel guilty for leaving Bran and Rickon, but Jon tells me that I should not. I hope to visit them, and to see Winterfell rebuilt, but I never planned that I would live there beyond my childhood. My parents always reminded me that it was my duty to marry and find a home in my husband's home. I imagined that I would go South, to King's Landing, that my life would be warm and full of rich splendours. The things I wanted—I was foolish, taken in by Joffrey."

"You were a child."

"Perhaps," she shrugs, "but there are children who see clearer than I did, who are better than I was."

The babe in his arms starts to root around looking for food. "Wait here," Oberyn says, touching Sansa's shoulder and taking little Sansya inside to her mother.

He reappears a few moments later, as Sansa has almost finished brushing her hair and is plaiting sections of it, drinking from the flagon of water Oberyn had brought out with him.

"You say that you once dreamed of a life in the South, has that dream not come true?" Oberyn says, with a sweep of his arm across the city. "I will not say that the gods might have planned this from the beginning, because I do not think – I do not believe – that they work in that fashion. To cause your family such tragedies, to take Elia from me, I cannot think that these things were necessary for us to find ourselves here, for we would be happier still if they had not happened, would we not," he says and Sansa nods, squeezing his arm. "But I am glad to offer you a home here with Ellaria and myself, I am glad that you might be happy."

Jon joins them on the balcony, blearily wiping at his eyes and then pausing to stretch his back and groan. He is only wearing his smallclothes and they are enticingly low on his hips.

"Good morrow," Oberyn calls.

Jon nods and comes closer, sliding a hand behind Sansa's shoulders and kissing her just next to her mouth. "What are you speaking of?" he asks, reaching for Sansa's water cup and downing the lot. "You looked serious."

"We were speaking of marriage," Oberyn says, and Sansa startles and clutches his arm.

*

It took Jon and Sansa long enough to come together as lovers that Oberyn thinks he should nudge them on their way or they will take forever to realise that they should wed too.

"We were not speaking of marriage-" Sansa says, looking flustered, her cheeks pink.

Jon is looking just as confused and bashful, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"Well, not precisely," Oberyn says. "We were speaking of your future in Dorne, the both of you."

"Aye," Jon says. "We wish to stay here, if you shall have us."

"You would be welcome here. I know that Ser Manfrey has been searching for a new Master-at-arms."

"And marriage?" Sansa asks in a thin voice.

"You are the children of several great houses, young and no-doubt eager to have many babes, you should marry one another," Oberyn says, with an easy shrug.

"But-" Jon says, his eyes blinking rapidly.

Have they truly not given this matter any thought at all? Oberyn wonders. "Ellaria and I may still be your lovers after you wed, if you wish it," he adds.

"You will?" Sansa asks.

"Yes," Oberyn says, tilting her face up with a finger beneath her chin and kissing her forehead. "What are your thoughts, Jon?" he asks, turning him.

Jon smiles wryly, rubbing his beard. "You would have me ask Sansa to marry me dressed like this?" he says.

Sansa is biting her lip and her eyes are looking suspiciously moist.

Oberyn walks over to the door to his bedchamber. "Ellaria," he calls, "you should be here for this."

She comes out a moment later, having dressed herself in one of his favourite orange dresses, carrying a slumbering Sansya in a sling across her shoulders. And on her heels is Ghost, wearing a plaited ribbon collar that Loreza must have made him.

"Wait," Oberyn says, holding Ellaria back as he watches the other two at the furthest end of the balcony. Jon is holding Sansa's face in his hands, murmuring to her as she nods and smiles.

Oberyn leads Ellaria closer, as Ghost circles the couple.

"Do we have a wedding to arrange?" Ellaria asks, quick as ever.

"Sansa," Jon asks tenderly, holding her hands. "Will you be my wife?"

"I will," she says, smiling sweetly.

Ellaria claps as the two of them kiss.

"Ah, young love," Oberyn says proudly, kissing the top of Ellaria's head.

***

Jon was nervous to leave Sansa today but she was adamant that she would be fine without him, that his task was an important one. Still, every step he makes towards the stables; and away from her and little Lyanna, their first babe, who has Sansa's blue eyes and his own dark hair, and is only a few weeks old; makes his heart race nervously in his chest.

"Ellaria will be here to look after us, and the Sand Snakes, and a whole palace full of servants," Sansa had said to him fondly.

"Alright, sweet girl," he had replied and kissed her, stroking a thumb across her cheek. She looks different now she is a mother, there are new lines on her face, a weary satisfaction that makes her look all the more beautiful, and she has fuller teats and wider hips that distract him daily.

"It is hard to leave them for the first time, is it not?" Oberyn says as he mounts the sand steed beside Jon's own.

"Aye," Jon says, remembering the weight of his babe, his daughter, in his arms last night as he rocked her to sleep, how she had clutched her tiny hand around his finger.

Today is the day of the Princes' Parade, and the city is already roaring with noise, the soldiers of Dorne have begun their slow procession through the streets, throwing out gifts from the sacks on the backs of their horses. Oberyn and Jon, in the role of the two princes, will take the rear of the parade.

"You look uncomfortable, Jon, do try to enjoy this," Oberyn teases as they leave the palace. "You have led armies into battle, you have beaten the Night King in single combat, what is a simple procession to that."

Jon huffs and adjusts his golden crown, tugging at the heavy embroidered waistcoat he wears over his silk tunic. But the moment he sees the colourful banners hung from the windows of the city, the first crowds singing and cheering for the procession, an easy smile spreads across his face.

He throws out oranges, toys, coins, necklaces, and sweets, laughing as children leap up from the crowd and stretch out of windows to catch their gifts. He throws out three separate crowns, paper copies of the ones he and Oberyn wear, hearing the shouts of excitement of the people who catch them, turning in his saddle to watch them be led to the golden carriages so that they can make their way up to the palace for the same feast he and Sansa attended years ago.

To think how frightened he had been then, convinced that they should have never ventured into the city, to think that he did not know what happiness awaited him and Sansa both.

The procession curls around the Winding Walls and passes the old walled orange groves, making its way under the Sky Archway, so named for its azure mosaic stones.

Jon shades his eyes with his hand and throws his fourth golden crown into a thick crowd clustered around a fountain, and sees a hand shoot up and catch it. But when he recognises the owner of the hand, he startles and halts his horse.

"Jon?" Oberyn asks, as Jon frantically dismounts, throwing his reins to a servant, and pushing his way into the crowd, his heart thumping in his chest.

"Hello, Jon," Arya says when he reaches her and clutches her shoulders, shaking his head in amazement.

"Arya," he says, and feels his chin tremble.

She is older now, a woman, and beautiful, but still a head shorter than him unlike Sansa, he thinks with a dazed smile.

"I hear congratulations are in order, brother," she smirks.

He nods and laughs. "Aye, little Lyanna. She has my hair, your hair," he says nonsensically.

"Not Arya?" she asks.

"We were saving that name for the next one. And Sansa had always hoped-" Jon shakes his head again and hugs her to him tightly, as she pats him on the back. "Come," he says, wiping his eyes as he notices the clamour of the crowd around them for the first time, "let me take you back to the palace."

"I should like that," she says, with a little smile.

"And you must tell us where you have been, what you have been doing," he says, eyes roaming her face that bears a new slashed scar across her cheek, and her clothes which do not look Westerosi in style.

"It's a long story," she says, mounting the horse that Oberyn has found for her. "As long as yours, I imagine, the bastard Lord Commander who became a Prince of Dorne. It's like something from one of Sansa's songs," she says.

He laughs, and the crowds around him cheer, the sun glints off the pale walls and golden roofs of Sunspear, as he makes his way back towards the palace, and his home.