Capítulo 6: Threats from the east
NOTE: Some of you told me you cant read the chaps cause of some webnovel update shit. I also publish in Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net Same story title and same user name.
***
Jacaerys sets the children down and walks over to the babies, crouching on the ground beside them.
Theoden ignores him and plays with a wooden horse. The older Martell ruffles his hair and turns his attention back to the prince.
"So you are Doran" he picks him up and looks at him carefully. "Hahaha you are so different from your mother. When I hugged Obella for the first time that brat screamed like a banshee." His laugh is loud and carefree.
Doran looks at him with a raised eyebrow.
`No one speaks ill of my mother. Let make him regret it`
A sinister gleam appears in the prince's dark eyes, he takes a deep breath and lets out a deafening scream.
Jacaerys and the other children are startled.
Doran starts crying as hard as he can.
The older prince tries to rock him.
"Shhs. Calm down little prince." But his attempts are unsuccessful, he desperately looks at the other children. To his dismay Theoden begins to cry, either because Doran's screams scared him or out of sympathy for the other baby.
`Yes Theo cry. Babies united! Attack!`
Inside Doran is laughing at Jacaerys's panic.
"What have you done?!" Once Lewyn got over his shock, he had never seen his nephew so agitated before, he pounced on his uncle. "Dory never cries!"
The nannies nod their heads in agreement, they too tried to calm the young prince to no avail.
Michael for his part rocks his younger brother and whispers words of comfort to him.
Soon the hustle and bustle reaches the ears of the baby's parents and Princess Obella walks into the room quick as lightning, her husband a few steps behind her.
She frowns at her uncle and quickly picks up her baby.
"Shsss little sweetling mama is here." She rocks him against her chest and whispers in his ear. Trystanne rubs the baby's back in circles. Doran calms his screaming and lies still, breathing deeply with his head resting on his mother's shoulder.
`Crying is exhausting. How babies manage to cry 24 hours a day is beyond me. They should give them an award for endurance and determination, my throat hurts and I just want to sleep. My stamina sucks.`
The youngest of the Martells closes his eyes and soon falls asleep.
Obella passes her baby into the arms of her husband and approaches Jacaerys menacingly.
She looks at him with a death glare and stabs her finger into his chest.
"What have you done?" She punctuates each word.
"Nothing, I swear to the gods." The silver-haired Martell throws up his hands in surrender and tries to back away. His great-niece can be very dangerous once pissed off.
"You were rough with Dory and scared him."
"Yes. You can't suddenly pick up a baby who doesn't know you."
"Besides, your appearance is very weird and that must have scared my nephew."
"Yes."
Michael and Lewyn are roasting him.
"My appearance is not weird!" The prince defends himself but the look in the eyes of the heiress princess silences him, that glare promises pain. Jacaerys, for the first time in a long time, prays to the gods.
***
The gods answered his plea in the form of Dorna Nymeros Martell.
After the arrival of the Princess of Dorne at the nursery, the chaos calms down. The children are put to bed and some of the adults go to sleep as well.
Dorna calms her daughter and Prince Jacaerys will live to see another sunrise.
`Thank the gods for my niece. Dorna from now on you are my favorite Martell!`
But not all the Martells go to bed, some of them still have unfinished business.
A group of Martells follow the ruling princess to her solar.
The solar is a spacious room. One wall has several huge, floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books. The opposite wall has several windows and a glass door that leads to a balcony. A large mahogany desk sits at one end of the room, and there is a large orange sofa in front of the bookshelves. In front of the sofa there is a low table with a tray full of fruit, a pitcher of wine and several glasses.
Obella flops down on the sofa, her husband sits next to her. Trystanne picks up five glasses and fills them with wine, passing one glass to his wife, one to his good mother, one to his good father, and one to Jacaerys.
He leans back on the sofa with his glass in hand and takes a sip.
"This year's harvest was good." He comments.
Arthur nods, Jacaerys walks over to the windows and leans back.
"Are the rumors true?"
"There are many rumors, niece" Jacaerys smiled playfully. "Be more precise."
Dorna rolls her eyes.
"Stop playing games uncle, this is important."
Jacaerys pouts and shrugs. He mutters something about children being too serious.
"Daemon Blackfyre is the current captain of the Golden Company, publicly calling himself Damon Blackheart."
"Another Blackfyre at the helm of that damned sellsword company." Arthur murmurs with a grimace.
"And what are his plans?"
"His plans are the same as any other Blackfyre, husband." Obella gets up and picks up the pitcher of wine, refills her glass, and sits back down.
"What Trys wants to know is how soon should we expect another war?"
Obella pouts at her mother, Dorne smiles a little at her and shakes her head in amusement.
`One son and still acting like a child, that's my daughter."
"You don't seem to take it seriously." Arthur looks disapprovingly at his wife and daughter.
Obella shrugs and leans her head against Trystanne's shoulder who wraps his arm around her.
Dorna looks at her husband.
`Sometimes I worry about that man. You have to see the humor even in the darkest situations. Living is not only fulfilling one's duty, it is also enjoying evey moment. I'll have to teach him another lesson, maybe tonight, Ob and Lew might have another brother or sister soon." A seductive smile appears briefly on Princess Dorna's face. With a more serious expression she replies to her husband:
"There have already been four Blackfyre wars. Each time the Seven Kingdoms have defeated them."
"But never wiped out. For every Blackfyre we kill, two more take their place." Jacaerys intervenes.
"How many children did Daemon have?"
"At least a hundred by the looks of it." Obella and Jacaerys smile at each other.
"Enough. When war comes to Westeros Dorne will be in danger."
"We are the first kingdom." Trystanne nods in agreement with the words of his good father.
Dorne is located south of Westeros, it is the entry point to the last continent of the Known World for most of Essos, given its natural defenses not many dare to try to invade them but the Targaryens are among the few idiots who have tried. Daeron I and his ambitions caused the deaths of tens of thousands. The Blackfyre have proven to be as daring as their ancestor.
But that's not all, a war would cause an increase in pirate activity in the Stepstones, which would hamper trade terribly. Dorne's economy is heavily based on trade, they do not have fertile lands like the Reach or mountains full of gold like the Westerlands. If a war breaks out, their economy will be partially paralyzed, causing many in Dorne to suffer, especially the smallfolk.
And that's not even mentioning the soldiers they'd have to send to fight.
`Wars are terrible investments, only idiots believe that they gain more through war than using their wits. Wars only cause unnecessary waste of resources and men. But again most wars were started by fools with nothing under their ears but horseshit.` The Princess of Dorne rolls her eyes.
"Trade will be affected, our treasure will be affected. Our people will suffer and our warriors will die"
Dorna looks out the window thoughtfully. "What is the crown doing to prevent another war?"
Jacaerys frowns and shakes his head.
"Nothing. Aegon knows about the Blackfyre threat but he ignores them. He's too focused on his reforms."
"Aegon and his reforms." Dorna murmurs with a grimace.
"The king became very fond of the smallfolk during his time as Ser Duncan's squire."
"But there has to be a limit son." Arthur walks over to his wife and puts a hand on her lower back.
The Princess of Dorne sends him a small smile.
"The king is forgetting, or rather, he is ignoring many of his duties." Obella gets up from the sofa and approaches her mother. She wraps an arm around her, she knows the stress Aegon V is causing her mother with his actions.
Dorna smiles fondly at her.
`The gods blessed me with a good husband and a great heiress`
"We have more than enough gold to hire a faceless man to get rid of the Blackfyre." Jacaerys looks at his niece with an eyebrow raised expectantly.
"No uncle, this Daemon is one of endless Blackfyres. Killing him won't solve anything, another will take his place."
"It would be a waste of coins." Arthur agrees with his wife.
"What can we do then?"
The Princess looks at them seriously.
"Prepare for war Trystanne."
"We could write to the king." Obella looks hopefully at her parents. The prospect of another war just a decade after the last one is not pleasant. Obella was just a girl during the last Blackfyre war but she remembers the fear she felt those days, looking every day from a balcony towards the sea waiting for the return of the Dornish ships. Waiting for the return of her parents, uncles and aunts.
During that war her cousin Arianne, Steffon's older sister, died.
Arianne Toland wasn't supposed to be in that battlefield, Steffon was supposed to be House Toland's representative in the war. But Arianne inherited her mother's personality, if you closed the door she went out the window.
Lady Arianne hid on her cousin's ship, and Dorna Martell didn't send her cousin home when she found the stowaway, she let Arianne accompany her to war.
Maya and Willam understand that even if Dorna had refused to allow Arianne to accompany her, the headstrong Toland would have gone to the battlefield anyway. But Steffon refuses to understand.
He thinks that the Princess should have sent his sister home by force, dragging her if necessary. But Dorna didn't and Arianne fought in the war, she fought and died as a true Dornishwoman but that brought no comfort to her family.
Misfortune continued to attack House Toland, Arianne's daughter, only two years old, died a few months later. She died of an illness but unpleasant rumors began to circulate, that Steffon killed his niece for greed. Princess Maya and Lord Willam dispelled most of the rumors but the damage has already been done. Steffon has been bitter ever since.
`He lost his sister and niece in less than a year and was unfairly branded as kinslayer... Anyone would be at least a little bitter after suffering such a misfortune.` Obella makes a small grimace in sympathy with her cousin.
"We could." Dorna smiles gently at her.
Jacaerys shakes his head, he knows that no letter will get Aegon V Targaryen out of his ambitions.
`That man is more stubborn than a mule.`
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Eden_of_Kovir
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