Of Lions, Wolves, and Dragons (Jon Snow)

20. Uniting Westeros

A few weeks had passed since Varys had mentioned to her the possibility of Oberyn only agreeing to marry her to get revenge on her father.  Joellyn had not worked up the courage to mention it to anyone yet.  All she knew was that her confidence in Varys's intuition had increased the more that she thought on Oberyn Martell's intentions.  As a result, Joellyn dived deeper into her training with Bronn.  She had become very consistent with bow and arrow.  She felt like she would be able to keep her mind focused in the midst of distraction if she needed to.  However, that was not what she was as concerned with.

She was still terrible at hand-to-hand combat and fending off attacks at close range.  Her frustration mounted practice after practice as she continued to stall and not improve.  Bronn's impatience also grew, and this did not help Joellyn's growing frustration.  It had come to the point where it felt like Bronn was purposefully attacking her with more speed and difficulty.  It was also becomming more difficult to cover the bruises that were forming from her terrible practices with Bronn.

After one particularly frustrating practice, she ran back to her room to get away from Bronn as quickly as possible and slammed her door and began muttering to herself, "You have to move more quickly, Lannister.  An enemy will not take it easy on you, so I won't either.  The best way to learn is to feel the pain and try to avoid it.  If I don't hurt you, you have no reason to want to improve.  Well, fuck you Ser Bronn of the Blackwater.  Fuck you and your fucking terrible self defense lessons!"

Joellyn jumped in surprise when she heard Tyrion say to her, "Bad practice, huh?"

Joellyn sat down ungracefully into a chair across the table from Tyrion as he was working on some papers saying, "That is an understatement.  There have been weeks upon weeks of bad practices.  I don't know why I continue to pay him to beat up on me and frustrate me."

Tyrion laughed, "I think frustrate is an understatement, my dear.  I haven't heard so much profanity out of you at a single time in your entire life."

Joellyn felt all of her pent up frustration unleash as she opened her mouth to reply, "Of course I am frustrated.  I'm furious.  I am to be married in a few weeks time, and I know nothing about this man who probably only wants to marry me so that he can hurt me and get his revenge for what happened to his family!  I want to become better at defending myself, just in case that is Oberyn's intention, but your friend Bronn is not helpful.  At all."

Tyrion put down what he was working on and looked at her with concern, "Why are you so concerned that Oberyn will want to hurt you?  Where did this idea come from?"

Joellyn sighed, "Originally, it came from Varys, but the more I think on it the more I believe that it must be true.  Oberyn does not have a reputation that would lead me to think that he is willing to settle down and spend his life with one woman.  On top of that, the Mountain serves our father.  The Mountain killed Elia Martell.  It only makes sense."

Tyrion asked, "Have you discussed this with our father?"

Shaking her head, Joellyn replied, "Of course not.  You know he does not listen to us."

Tyrion stood saying, "I will leave you to ready yourself for the day.  We should discuss this with our father.  I cannot believe that I did not consider that myself until just now.  I will return shortly to accompany you."

He left quickly and Joellyn instantly regretted saying anything to Tyrion.  Of course he would want to tell their father, but she truly did not think it would do any good.  Their father would think they were overreacting and would insist that she had no choice in the matter.  Her duty was to the Lannister family, he would say, and she would need to marry and produce heirs to continue their hold at Casterly Rock.