The Sun Will Shine On Us Again | Oberyn Martell

The Tournament

Eddard Stark was the new hand of the king.

Joanna was surprised to learn that this was the reason for their recent trip to the north of Westeros. To go such an enormously long way for something like that... she didn't wonder to her mother that she was still angry with her father about it.

And what didn't surprise Joanna at all was that he decided to hold a tournament in Eddard Stark's honor. She had breakfast with her mother in her chambers, her husband was there with them. They sat side by side, Queen Cersei sat across from them.

Joanna was holding a grape between her fingers. "The tournament? Is that Stark man really that important to make the whole tournament just for him?" she blurted out in sheer surprise.

The king was known for his never-ending parties and tournaments and anything that he could have at least a little bit of fun and blow money on just like that. Joanna herself was surprised. Her mother, on the other hand, was not. She was already used to it. Joanna, on the contrary, weaned off of it. But that was due to her being away from home for so long and not living with them anymore.

Oberyn placed his hand on her thigh and caressed it along its side. What had happened between them the previous day... well, it was as if Joanna had miraculously forgotten about it and pretended that nothing had happened after all. It didn't even happen; they just had an ordinary exchange of opinions and that was normal. At least according to her mother.

"And what's wrong with that? Sounds like a great opportunity for a few lords to meet again to me. Whether it will be the lower ones or the higher ones." Joanna's husband also joined the discussion. She gave him an ugly look in a second.

"What's wrong with that? Again, he will throw money out of the treasury just to celebrate the appointment of his new Hand. It's even worse when this happens, or at least used to happen, on a daily basis." Joanna answered him indignantly.

The queen looked between her daughter and her husband. She stayed out of their conversation, letting Joanna explain everything to Oberyn. To initiate him into everything that was common with her father and his father-in-law.

"And? I should participate in the tournament too."

That, it seemed, was the last straw for Joanna. Her hand fell from the air onto the table, when some of the lighter things that were placed on the table jumped up and fell. Cersei would have sworn that Oberyn's wife had paled at least one shade. She didn't even look at Oberyn. She was looking somewhere in front of her. Absent. It looked as if her soul suddenly left her body and only her body remained there.

"If I may step in..." Cersei began, but Joanna was faster.

"Not now, mother," she pointed at her with the finger of the hand that landed on the table. She turned her head to Oberyn and shook her head in disapproval. "You will not participate in it."

Oberyn looked at his mother-in-law, tilting his head to the side, his gaze softening. He looked to her as a kind of salvation. He needed her help, which didn't happen very often. It didn't happen at all. But now he really needed her. He pressed his lips into a straight line, his hand still resting on Joanna's thigh, which he now squeezed much tighter.

"Why not? It is not like I am going to die." Oberyn said amused.

However, he didn't know that with those words he would cut to the living. Joanna pushed her plate away, and shortly after she grabbed his hand, which was still on her thigh, and pulled it away from her. She looked at him briefly, then looked at her mother and got up from the table.

And before Oberyn could recover, Joanna was gone. He was left alone with Cersei.

Oberyn ran his palm over his own face and sighed. He didn't understand. He didn't understand Joanna. He tried to understand her, but she was so damned complicated that even during all these months he still couldn't understand her... not even once. And just when he thought he finally understood her, something suddenly came up to disabuse him.