Phew. I cannot believe I managed to actually get this one out relatively early compared to my normal update time. I have to say though that this chapter is smaller than the last one though I am going to make the next one longer to make up for it. I had to find some place to cut it off here for next time.

I am absolutely floored by the response to this fic even after all this time. Thank you all so much, to all of you who have reviewed and read and favourited and followed; and thank you to the guest reviews I received who I haven't been able to contact. Thank you to you all. I truly could not have gotten this far without you all and your support honestly means more than I can say. Just a massive thank you!

Without further ado, let me introduce the next chapter. I hope you all like it.

Sleeping in the same chambers as Oberyn Martell was nothing short of terrifying, Tya soon decided. Not that she saw much of him – he had made it his mission to avoid her as much as he possibly could. He snuck in at the dead of night when she was fast asleep and slept anywhere other than the bed and then left come the dawn before she had a chance to wake up. The only reason Tya was privy to that information was due to the extremely conversational maids and servants that littered the grand castle who apparently held highly intimate details regarding whom Oberyn was seeing and where.

Not that Tya needed the reminder.

Nevertheless, her adoring husband did not fail to perform his duty when it was required of him. The few times they 'procreated' were among the most uncomfortable experiences of Tya's relatively short life – made even worse when Oberyn called his filthy paramour's name when he finally finished. The first couple of times he had dishonoured her in such a disgusting manner she was convinced he was fantasising of his favourite whores, the men and the women, Oberyn's unusual tastes were no secret, and she was left with such a hollow emptiness long after their activities had ended.

However, since Tya had made the rather nerve-wrecking decision to share her chambers with her husband, she prided herself on slowly unravelling the enigma that was the Red Viper. She became somewhat attune to his atypical behaviourisms; though she wasn't so deluded as to believe she could speak fluent Oberyn. She doubted even the infamous Ellaria Sand was so intimately acquainted with him in that fashion, no matter how many times he moaned her name when in bed with Tya. Regardless, Tya was under the impression that she knew Oberyn well enough to be able to spot certain thoughts and feelings as they flashed through his guarded façade, so quick she could barely catch them. And she didn't, the first instances. But, she watched and learned and her dutiful surveillance seemingly paid off when she noted a particular look in his gaze when he betrayed her honour and groaned his whore's name so loudly at times she was sure the sound travelled even to the Starks of Winterfell. That tell-tale glint of challenge in his eyes; of raw defiance and confrontation spoke volumes to his wife.

He's doing this on purpose, she realised. Trying to provoke a rise out of me. White-hot anger pooled in her gut then, replacing whatever false lust she tried to glean when they were performing their actions as man and wife. And by the gods will I meekly lay here and let him do so.

And with that, she started playing him at his own game. She started off small, at first. Tya wouldn't allow him the opportunity to cotton on to what she was trying to do; she had to make it appear realistic and less as though she were doing so in obvious retaliation against his own actions. It would be a whispered name after several thrusts, murmured directly into his ear, and she would continue that routine for the next few times they would perform their nightly activities, spares as they were. Then, she sped things along and started screaming the name of another man – of Eddard Stark, coincidentally, a dull man she was sure would not be able to please anyone in the slightest; Amory Lorch had been her first choice but she quickly vetoed that idea when she realised that she would not live to see the sunrise were she to moan that name – before articulating complete phrases, just begging him to please her in a manner Oberyn couldn't.

Yet her best efforts simply rolled off him, barely fazing him and they definitely did not incite him into a jealous rage. It was as if he knew she was doing this on purpose, as if he knew what she was planning. His confidence in himself was sickening though it was unfortunately very well deserved. Tya doubted she could have hoped for a better lover in bed, much as it pained her to admit, even to herself. Mayhap Stark was a bad choice – if the plan was for her tactics to pass as sincere as Oberyn's obviously were then she really should have picked someone who had a reputation for passionate lovemaking. She practically gave the game away, threw it away.

When did I become such a pushover?

Yet Tya had found that she discovered traits she never even realised she possessed the more she carried on with her petty revenge ploy. Possessiveness was one she hadn't banked on yet that didn't stop her from marking her husband with teeth, tongue, lips in the throes of passion, particularly when she knew that she was sharing her husband with an unknown and immeasurable amount of Dornishfolk. She would never forget the look on his paramour's face when she caught sight of an especially red and angry one that marred his smooth and open neck, looking proudly out at the world. Tya had smirked victoriously at the look of great displeasure the filthy bastard gave to her. It was the first time in a very long while that she had felt so alive. She was a member of the game, whether they liked it or not, and by the gods would she play to win.

Oberyn hadn't been appeared to be at all bothered by her antics, a fact which surprised her. If anything, he seemed to be amused by them. Tya frowned as she thought on her husband once again – he was a mystery. She wondered if she would ever know him though she quickly rebuffed that question with another: why do you even care?

She didn't. At all. She was just staking a claim: he was her husband. Hers. He didn't belong to some whore. And the sooner he put his child in her belly, the better – then she would have all the proof she needed that he was irrefutably hers.

Except, he did already have a mother of his children, bastard though they may be. Ellaria Sand. Was there nothing that woman could not do? she mused bitterly. How was it that a Lannister was bested by a mere Dornish whore of a bastard?

Why did Oberyn want that over Tya?

Regardless, these were not questions Tya had answers to and she had long since vowed not to permit herself to get lost in pessimistic ponderings and Dornish whores. She had nothing to prove, not really, no matter what Tywin Lannister had to add to the contrary. Besides, her loving sister fared no better with Robert Baratheon as a lover – at least Oberyn was willing to sleep with her, under persuasion. She was not completely undesirable, at least, even if she was not yet pregnant.

Tya smiled at the thought. For once she would not be the one whom their father regarded as a failure – and here she was under the impression that she would never see that day when she was the better daughter in the eyes of Tywin Lannister. And she was certain that she was more loved by her people than Cersei Lannister which, considering she was the one stuck in Dorne, was saying something.

But then the smile wilted against her face before drooping completely as she recalled the unpleasantness that had befallen her earlier in the week.

Tya had smiled her first genuine smile all week when she received her dear brother's letter. To read his words had been a comfort to her, the likes of which she could never hope to find in Dorne. It was slightly embarrassing just how starved for genuine affection she was that she drank each and every word her little brother had written as though she were a starving man left out to dry in the desert. Nobody ever dared show the lioness even a scrap of kindness, not one that wasn't forced or badly constructed – and no matter how much Tya had come to rely on her handmaiden, she knew that Dayla was not helping her out of the goodness in that Dornish heart. Even she was playing the game but she had no possible way of understanding that Tya had been playing the game far longer than she could dream of; Tya was the better candidate. You wanted her on your side, it has been known.

But this, Tyrion's company in the form of a letter, this was not fake. It was not false manipulation nor was it manufactured solely to fawn and flatter her only to stab her in the back much like her brother Jaime did when he decided to abandon his vows. And it was that genuine connection that wrought a large grin on the princess' skin – a smile so large she could practically visualise her skin almost breaking under the weight of it; could feel her rosy lips pulling at her skin, tightening it though she spared her appearance not a moment's thought.

He had not written much to her other than to loudly complain – she could hear his voice reverberating inside her skull – about their lord father's latest antiques and demands, a fact which greatly amused her. Tyrion's colourful vernacular never ceased to humour her, and him, and she wished at that moment, more than anything else in this gods-forsaken world, that she could have been there with him. She missed him like an ache she never knew would hurt so much. There was a Tyrion-shaped hole in her life that was definitely not portrayed to size and no amount of flirting or teasing or rough fucking with Oberyn could or would fill it. She would just have to find a way to manage her pain all on her own.

Although, his letter did bring shocking news. In retrospect, Tya found that it was not that surprising but rather she was

The Queen was pregnant.

It was not yet common knowledge yet Tya knew that it would not take long with figures such as the Spider and Littlefinger before the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms was awash with this revelation. And she was also sure that Dorne would be the least thrilled of them, a fact which made her smile softly. At least the Dornishmen were as happy with the news as she was. Though that didn't erase the twinge of panic that shot through her when she realised that Cersei was winning this game. She was the one who was carrying the Crown Prince or Princess whilst Tya was barely making ends meet. It felt like that anyway.

It was then, at the beginning of the third week since Tya's request to share chambers, that found the Dornish princess sharing her private concerns to her closest confidant.

"And you're sure, are you?"

"Yes, my princess."

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"I wouldn't dare dream of it."

"I am not with child?"

"Regretfully, you are not, Tya."

The Princess Martell shot her handmaiden a filthy look. "How can you be sure?"

Dayla pursed her lips and made to help Tya with the laces of her gown. "It has been a few days since your last interaction with Prince Oberyn and yet you are showing no signs."

"You cannot deny I have been experiencing odd cravings, Dayla," she protested, albeit weakly. The aforementioned handmaid refrained from showing her exasperation at Tya's plea and did not deign to respond. "And I have been feeling a little under the weather if you recall."

Dayla gave a displeased look to the back of Tya's golden head and retorted: "Begging your pardon but placing your fingers on the back of your mouth to induce vomiting is not quite the same thing."

Tya sighed gustily at that as Dayla spun her around to tie up the front of her gown.

"If I may inquire, Princess Tya, why are you expressing a desire to be with child?"

"Is it not every wife's dream?" Tya responded rhetorically, deflecting the question and all its many implications.

Dayla raised a brow, pointedly, watching as the princess' willed gaze dropped from her eyes, resting instead on the ornate wooden flooring of her chambers.

"A child would be something to love," she muttered low under her breath. "And something to love me. Mayhap, even, a babe could make me appear sympathetic in the eyes of the people."

Dayla sucked in a breath. "You would use a child for your own needs? That is selfish, Tya." She took a small amount of pleasure in the barely concealed flinch that wracked Tya's body. The woman in question sniffed in lieu of a reply, refusing to answer to the Dornishwoman's false flowery words.

"No matter," she finally said, looking for an end to the unexpected lecture, unable to listen to any more words come pouring out of that mouth.

Was she truly a monster for simply wanting a child? she questioned herself as silence permeated her chambers, a deep quiet stifling her – one so thick not even Dayla's small movements registered as noise. There was only one way she could possibly gain their loyalty and love and trust in a way even Cersei Lannister would be proud of and if she had to bear her husband a son that that was what she had to do.

Yet, she found she could not deny the warm feeling that engulfed her when her musings turned to the image of her babe. A small smile graced her lips as she pictured what a child of hers would look like: beautiful, that was a given considering House Lannister's favourable beauty and charm – not to mention their wit, as her twin exemplified on a daily basis – and Oberyn was as handsome as any man Tya clamped eyes on so their babe would certainly not be an ugly one. Intelligent, too, for Tya would not allow a child of hers to be dim and Oberyn channelled cunning smarts.

She could see it when she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to wander adrift. A baby boy with Oberyn's tanned complexion and his dark hair but with her glinting emerald eyes. He would be a charmer, she mused and smirked at the thought. Of course he would, he is of the blood of two noble houses with magnificent prospects. He will want for nothing. Or a girl, she offered inquisitively, a daughter with her fair Lannister looks but with Oberyn's devilish smirk and rich black eyes so piercing they can stare into a person's soul. She would be fierce; a lioness with all the deadliness of a terrifying viper.

Her thoughts turned sour once she cast her mind back on the rivalry and hatred between House Lannister and House Martell; nay, House Lannister and every other great house, it seems in recent years, Tya added darkly. She hoped she would never one day be put into a position where she would have to choose between her family and her baby because she wasn't entirely certain which one she would pick. And there was no way in seven hells she would allow the Red Viper of Dorne or his paramour or Prince Doran to take her child away from her, if it one day came to that. That child would be hers – Oberyn already had several bastards. She would not condone a babe of her womb to be used as nothing more than a pawn in this game; Tya noted with steely resolution that she would teach this babe all that she knew of the game. And hopefully that will be enough for them to survive on, she prayed.

Tya was broken, rather abruptly if she did say so herself, out of her reverie by her own handmaiden – the self-appointed voice of reason, as it so happens. It took the princess a second to remember what it was she was arguing previously before she was overrun with vivid pictures of her fictitious child – ah yes, the use of a child to manipulate the public of Dorne. She had no love her, she thought sourly, and surely every member of Dorne was practically vying for the chance to dispose of her. Especially when the news of Queen Cersei's pregnancy has just reminded them yet again of where their princess' allegiance truly lies.

Tya felt almost ashamed for the raw sentimetality she just exumed as she thought on her child. It would not do for her handmaid and the rest of Dorne to think her a simple-minded fool whose only thought was on creating a family. She was Tya Lannister of Casterly Rock.

She was worth more than that.

"Do you know how many people live in Westeros, my princess?"

Tya frowned. "No. A few million I should think." Her confusion was apparent on her face as she wondered what had brought this sudden change of topic on.

"Close, my princess. And in Essos there are millions more."

"Your point, please, Dayla."

Dayla's hands paused from where they were holding golden strands of Tya's hair in her half-finished plait. The fine strands tickled at her hands as they weaved in and out of fingers, their contact bestowing unusual sensations within the nerve endings as they attempted to categorise this strange new feeling on her skin.

"My point, Tya," she began and Tya barely recognised the mistake of not appropriately addressing her as her royal title demanded, so enraptured was she in her handmaiden's carefully chosen words, "is that there are a million, million people all living here on the dirt the gods saw fit to bestow upon us. A million, million people with their own lives, their own thoughts, their own feelings."

Tya listened and prompted with a hard, "and?" to Dayla's secret message.

The Dornish woman released Tya's hair from her clamp and walked around her to face her directly as she continued. Dayla's face was soft and as warm as the Dornish sun they were constantly bathing under. The aged wrinkles and frown lines that had marred her skin from so many years spent in the land of the living smoothed as her eyes wandered over Tya's confused, innocent face. "Do you think any one of them is wasting a thought on you?"

The younger woman scoffed immediately and averted her green orbs from her handmaiden's seemingly omnipotent, piercing stare.

But Dayla was not finished. She grabbed Tya's hands from where they lay discarded upon the sides of her blood red dress – Lannister red, upon first inspection, although the red also matched the blazing sigil of the Martell sun – and implored her to meet her gaze once more.

"Do you honestly think that you are all they think about? That we are all mere stories in the great songbook of Tya Lannister, the innocent hero?" Her voice was teasing yet warm honesty bled through her tone. "This world does not belong to you and to you alone, Tya. I dare say that in many minds there is not even a sliver of a mention of you. Not one. There is no great mastermind seeking to undermine you at every turn." Dayla chuckled, adding, "Trust me, princess, when I say that no one truly gives a fuck about you."

Annoyance shone through Tya's answering stare then. Her reply was as petulant and as sulky as Dayla had expected. "Is that it then? We have already established that I am worth nothing and that not a soul would care for me regardless. Are your wise stories always going to have such a drear and drab ending, Dayla?"

"No, princess. For this is not a story – this is life. And no one man's life is worth all the rest of the million millions currently living.

"You think they desire your head on a spike but they need those spikes for killing their food, for feeding their families, for warding off invaders. For preparing for winter. You are the very last thing on their minds." Dayla paused, musing over her words. "No, not the last thing – you are less than the sand beneath their feet. Why should they spare a thought on a golden princess?"

Dayla's words appeared to have struck a chord in Tya and she soon ceased her relentless moping and started building her walls back up again, one brick at a time. It was as she instructed that young Dornish orphan all those long weeks past: fight and fight hard. Play to win and never show your belly – not for anything.

With the determination surging through her, she gathered her defences, called her armies and rebuilt her castles. She would play the part of the weak and simpering fool no longer, she swore to herself, as her handmaid dressed her in her evening gown blood-red and yellow-sun – the respective colours of House Lannister and House Martell. A Lannister and a Martell, why should she choose between the two?

"Are you ready for dinner, my princess?"

Tya found that to be a rather loaded question, especially when taken into consideration their earlier conversation but she refused to illustrate the conflicting emotions warring internally and simply nodded to the Dornishwoman.

"Yes."

She would not allow herself to show any weakness or fear at this dinner even if it killed her. Her husband and good-brother would be in attendance for the first time since she arrived in this country, they would all be supping together. Tya resolutely ignored the small, annoying voice in her head that ranted all the reasons why this was a terrible idea and how any number of things could go wrong. For once in her life, she was not about to go overthinking and overanalysing and fretting on the worst case scenario. Not everything was bad.

But she knew, deep down in her bones, that this was not going to be good, either.