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It is his duty to Dorne, duty to his father, to his family and house. And it is his duty alone, to make the dangerous journey and meet his bride, he doesn't wish to have these men's blood on his conscience. They shouldn't have to die for him. But the Stranger has other plans, and he isn't the only one.
It is an honour, to fulfill his duty, to prove he can be the great hero that saves his people and wins their praise. A good husband, he will be, a good father too if the Gods let him. He wants much in life yet. He wants a girl to place feather-light kisses on his lips, he wants a flagon of wine in his hand to share with his sister so that she may stop being cross with him all the time, he wants to see mother once more and hug her as tight as he can, he wants to make father proud. Above all, he wants to take his dragon bride by the hand and lead her home, with no more smuggler's ships to board on the stormy seas.
With every passing moment of his journey he finds himself wanting more things, simpler things. When the corsairs strike the ship and leave them in tetters he wants to return home and when he reaches Volantis he wants for Cletus, Willam and Maester Kedry to be alive again. He knows they will make their way into his worst dreams and steal his sleep.
He becomes a merchant, a servant, a frog. At some point he is not sure who is anymore, only an over-grown boy who wishes nothing more than to go home. But duty keeps him going, duty and love, for the ones he left behind.
He doesn't know his bride, what she fancies, what she doesn't. He can imagine what she looks like however, just like how he would imagine her brother when he was a young boy. The Last Dragon, who had taken a bride of his own once and left her with nothing but broken promises and a torn soul in the end. If it weren't for him, Quentyn wouldn't be on this ship, he wouldn't have seen his friends die one by one, wouldn't be crushed under the weight of the same duty that had swallowed his aunt whole.
Sweet Elia, pretty Elia, poor Elia. Words he never quite understood in the same way his father and uncle did. Arianne remembered her but refused to tell him, saying he needn't know. He would never understand anyway.
But now, he understands her like no other. Better than his father, his uncle, his cousins, better than Arianne ever could. Alone, away from home, sent to wed a dragon who could turn him to ash in one angry roar. Had she not lived the way he were to live now, on a knife's edge? But she must have been brave, he thought, until her very last moment, must have stared death in the eye and taken a deep breath, if his uncle's words were true. He can do the same, be brave for them, avenge the deaths of his aunt and her children by unleashing a beast of the skies, wrapping a cloak with the sun and the spear of his home around pale shoulders and silver locks.
As he draws closer and closer to his target, he begins thinking about her more. Daenerys, they have named her, he might not know the queen atop a throne of slavers' skulls but he knows Daenerys, the one responsible for the pools many a child has spent their happiest years in. He has seen the portrait of her, the one he would find his sister frowning in front of when she was but a girl, fair and enchanting. His bride must resemble her namesake greatly, if the rumours are true.
The Dragon Prince was handsome too, so he has heard, though Uncle Oberyn has insisted time and time again that he had looked like a bad steed, the kind that would throw you off it half-way through the journey and leave you for dead on the dunes, never to be trusted. That must have been his aunt's single big fault, to trust a man with the eyes of a Blue Viper.
He learns when he arrives at his bride's court that he has fallen victim to the same mistake, has put his trust in the wrong place. They take him for a fool, laugh at his face, his silver dragon shirks him for another. And he feels the desperation bubble within, the desperation of a man that has done his duty without a single complaint or question but is cheated and deceived nonetheless. The desperation a woman with her duty growing inside her for moons must have felt when a garland of winter roses fell from a cursed lance and spread to her a rot that came all the way to Meeren with him now.
It is the same desperation he feels when he does what no man can dare and stares death in the eyes. The death in this case is a beast with golden scales, his last hope. He is the blood of the dragon, he can do this, he is not a boy anymore, he is a prince of Dorne, he is a hero, he can be brave, he...
Doesn't see it coming.
It hurts. Hurts like nothing else has ever hurt before, surely this is a cruel way to die. Is he dead, is he alive, is this the end? He knows not. A corpse cannot disappoint his people, his family but a corpse cannot be a bearer of good news either. No, he thinks, no. It is too soon, there is much he wants to do, they all bounce within his skull like the throbbing ache. A girl's lips, a flagon of Dornish Red, little Trystane's smile, a look of approval on his father's face, Arianne's hand in his. Mother, he cries out in the void, he wants to see her one last time, wants her to hold him in her arms. He doesn't want to sleep yet, he wants to play a little longer, feel the water between his fingers and toes. Yet all he can feel now is fire.
So, he thinks, this is what it's like to burn. He can see a woman with dark eyes and open arms waiting for him at the end of the road. She will be glad surely, when he arrives to her side, to finally have someone who understands.