Chapter Text
“He what?!”
Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth by the shores of Belfalas, on the westernmost tip of Dorne, was by most accounts a man slow to anger.
By the rest of the Seven Kingdoms reckoning, the Men of Dorne were largely considered to be brash and passionate if not downright hot-tempered, but Imrahil prided himself on being more level-headed than most of the Salty Dornishmen, and certainly more so than his second cousins of House Martell. In the land of the Vipers, the Prince of Dol Amroth had made a name for himself for being a man of a more elegant variety and carrying himself with propriety more commonly seen further north. In turn, the Southern courts found him and his kin rather a stuffy bunch, but it was a characteristic of their family passed down by his father, and father’s father before him, and so, since days of old, the members of his kin had been referred to as Swans, devoted and elegant. The white bird had come to decorate their family crest.
That the members of Prince Imrahil’s house alone among the passionate Dornishmen were known to be loyal lovers, much like the birds they were named after, was something of a running joke among the other Dornish houses.
Still, to be a Swan did not mean one was docile. The ships built by his boatsmen, the Swan Ships, were some of the most feared battle vessels in the Westeros; even the Iron Islanders had coveted them. Likewise, the Swan Soldiers were as fierce as any of Prince Oberyn’s Sand Snakes and among the best sword fighters in Dorne, counting among them his three sons Elphir, Erchirion and Amrothos. Even Imrahil himself had once, in the prime of his youth, bested Ser Barrestan Selmy in a tournament - though it was a tale he rarely told and if he did tell it, it was a sign to his daughter Lothíriel that her father had had more than his fill of wine.
Lothíriel, his sweet daughter who was so much the image of him but with all the best features of her mother, was known to all of Dorne to be the light of Prince Imrahil’s life. It was because of a great offense to her that the Prince was now, in a most uncharacteristic manner, shouting, slamming his fists on the grand table of his hall, causing wine goblets to fall over and sending tableware flying to the floor.
“To whom!” he shouts. “Tell me!”
“He-he…” The messenger stutters at his Lord’s sudden outburst, cowering in front of him. “He has married a woman, from Volantis. She’s a- she’s a healer.”
“A healer! Hah! He has offended me doubly so!” Imrahil shakes his fist and dismisses the messenger, who all but sprints out of the hall. He takes several deep breaths and surveys the men sitting around his table, each seemingly frozen in place at his anger. There is the portly Lordling of Tarnost, a vassal of Dol Amroth, whose fork is still lifted halfway to his mouth, and seated next to him a few emissaries from Pelargir, one of whom must have spit out his wine by the look of his tunic. Alongside them are also heavily bearded emissaries from Umbar, and representatives of Prince Doran and the court at Sunspear. Of Imrahil’s three sons there is only his youngest Amrothos present, who looks quite shaken by his father’s outburst and has suddenly found great interest in the detailed carvings of his goblet.
Lastly, sitting at Imrahil’s left is his daughter Lothíriel herself; tan and dark-haired like her father and brothers, but with the light green eyes of her mother, lined heavily with kohl as theirs are too. While the men present fidget and shift in their seats under the heat of his glare, Imrahil can see from the corner of his eye how his daughter looks up at him, smiling at him gently. She places a small hand over his as if to beg him not to anger on her account and he finds comfort in her touch. A man could not ask for a more precious daughter, he thinks.
“Adar, I am certain that if you send a raven to Lord Stark, he will gladly explain, in detail, what has caused him to make such a decision,” Lothíriel says in a soft voice, tilting her head to look at her father with the most loving of expressions. He wishes he could agree with her, see things from the same perspective, if only to save her from seeing the anger that still rushes through his veins, the indignation he is trying his best to swallow. It’s a failed attempt.
“He should have offered his explanation before his decision to marry another woman, one from Volantis no less, when he was already promised to you!”
“Perhaps he fell in love,” Amrothos offers quietly, trying to appeal to his father’s better nature. If nothing else, the people of Dol Amroth were known romantics, and his youngest son might very well be the most afflicted of them all - but such an explanation will not suffice.
“I am not one to easily dismiss the notion of love, my son, nor would I ever want you or your siblings to dismiss it, but we are at war,” Imrahil scoff, and gestures to the men from Tarnost, Pelargir, Umbar and Sunspear. “Are we not all gathered here to discuss our strategies and what support we can offer Lord Stark in his campaign against King’s Landing? And in return for our support, did the King in the North not promise to take your sister as Queen? Instead, the Young Wolf would spit in the faces of those who wish to help him. He has dishonored your sister most severely!”
“Adar,” Lothíriel starts, still trying to sooth him. Diplomatic to a fault, he thinks to himself. Among them Lothíriel should be the one most offended, and yet nothing in her voice nor her manner betrays even a hint of affront.
“You are right, Father,” Amrothos cuts in before his sister can continue, color beginning to rise high in his face. “You are right, I will not allow such a slight to my sister to go by unchallenged!”
He begins to rise in his seat, and this time Lothíriel turns her gaze to her brother.
“Hanar, please sit. You need not be offended on my behalf,” she says. “I for one am not offended.”
Both her father and her brother balk at her in disbelief, and so do the rest of the men at the table.
“Lady Lothíriel, surely you cannot be unbothered by this!” the Lord from Tarnost says with a cry. “Not only has Lord Stark broken a most sacred vow of betrothal to you, but that he should do so with a common woman, and from Volantis of all places!”
The men from Pelargir and Umbar voice their agreement, both that the breaking of an engagement was great cause for offense, and that one of the offending party’s hailing from a Free Cities made matters even worse. This last part was a curious point of contention as by all standards the North, should they become independent, would in their own way be more like the Free Cities of the East than they themselves were in Dorne. No matter how free spirited and open of mind the Southerners were, even they did not a low-born bride from Essos was an adequate replacement for one of their own Princesses, no matter Robb Stark’s reasoning. All told, it remained by all accounts a great offense that the man who had been sworn to his daughter had married another, and yet his Lothíriel seemed every bit unbothered.
“Perhaps I shall simply have to marry another, my lords. I think all here would all agree that betrothals these days are both easily made and easily broken.” The men fall silent, though a few of them mutter amongst each other. They all knew that she was referring to the betrothal of King Joffrey first to Sansa Stark of Winterfell and now to Lothíriel’s own cousin on her mother’s side, Margery Tyrell – who had herself already been married once to the would-be king, Renly Baratheon. The young Lady Stark for her part had even been made to go through several more engagements - both to the King’s uncle, the Imp, and to a Northerner of whom the Swans of Dol Amroth had heard such stories of as to make their skin crawl.
No, it seemed to Imrahil that his daughter was all together more concerned about what Robb Starks elopement meant for Dorne’s support of his campaign, and for the North’s independence. He had taught his daughter well, and she knew enough about strategy and warfare to know that anyone who wished to win in battle against the Lannisters would need Dol Amroth’s ships. Still, he had not imagined her so concerned with the outcome of a war that, if only for geographical distance alone, did not concern them. In the back of his mind is a voice that he had long ignored, warning of the influences of his mother-in-law, and the whispers of that voice grew ever so slightly louder now as he took in Lothíriel’s calm demeanor.
“What about one of the men of Rohan,” she puts forth, looking tentatively at her father. “Lord Théoden was one of Eddard Stark’s closest captains and his son is a noble and mighty man, from what I have seen. Why, last year at the Tournament of the Hand he knocked both Erchirion and cousin Loras right of their horses!”
Both Amrothos and her laugh at the memory, particularly of seeing their haughty cousin Loras knocked off his proverbial high horse, but Imrahil immediately dismisses the idea of such a match with another wave of his hand. “I know Theodred to be a fine man, but not only is he too old for you, I believe that if given a choice he would be more inclined to marry Amrothos than yourself.”
While the House of Swans was often considered more proper, if not conservative, than the rest of the Dornish, it did not mean they were narrow of thought. Dol Amroth kept the same open mind regarding love as the rest of the people of the Southern lands, though among the people of Dorne it was they alone who preferred loyalty in their marriages. Imrahil himself had never remarried after the loss of his wife and made yearly pilgrimages to the tomb of her ancestors in Highgarden; she had asked to be buried among the roses, not in the sands of Belfalas as his kin was. There was no judgement intended in Imrahil’s words to Amrothos, just acknowledgement that a man like Theodred would never love his daughter as he thought a husband should love a wife, as he had loved his wife.
“What about the other one then?” Lothíriel offers, after a moment of thought.
“You mean his cousin?” Amrothos asks, bewildered. “Sister, he is not much more than a glorified horse whisperer!”
Imrahil laughs to himself. It seemed even the great Romantic of Dol Amroth had his limits when it came to what men he deemed appropriate for his sister.
“Perhaps so, hanar,” Lothíriel replies, her soft smile ever-present, and Imrahil wonders if his daughter has not had a spare plan up her sleeve all along. Her grandmother would certainly have taught her to do so, and there's a brief glimmer in her eye that tells him his suspicion is justified. “Or perhaps it’s time I finally learn how to ride astride.”