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Part 4 of Carpe Diem (Aut Mori)
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Winter is Coming Jon Snow
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2024-04-23
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2025-10-28
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10/?
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Who Shall Return Us The Children?

,

Summary:

Newly eight name days old, Rohanne Lannister sails for Dorne to begin her fosterage under the Prince of Dorne and the repayment of the blood debt that the Westerlands owes to Dorne for the deaths of Princess Elia and her children.

It would be a difficult enough situation were she simply Jaime Lannister's naturalised daughter. But as Visenya Targaryen?

Her uncles plan to raise her for one purpose, the same purpose she and her devoted guardians share - to take back the Iron Throne.

Notes:

Title taken from Rudyard Kipling's The Children.
This fic is planned to span the beginning of Rohanne/Visenya's fosterage up until she arrives back in Casterly Rock after her fostering ends.

Chapter 1: They Were Dear In Our Sight

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Visenya I

She remembers, half a decade ago and a lifetime away, when her mother brought her to Dorne for the first time.

It had seemed like a land out of a fairytale, full of new and exciting sights and sounds and smells, where nothing bad could ever happen. 

Now, after the loss of well nigh everyone that she loved, she is more cynical and less innocent - if she could have been called innocent even then. 

Dorne is beautiful, but it is no paradise. 

Her uncles will see to it that she will be as safe as possible, will shower her with as much love as they can pour out on her, will give her the education and training of a queen. 

But they cannot make it a certainty. 

Life is dangerous and uncertain, and if she has learned anything from two lives and two lost childhoods, it is that nothing can guarantee safety. 

The Lannister banners flying high on the mast in place of her royal parents' colours are proof of that. 

"Ro! Ro!" She looks down at the nagging voice, accompanied with an insistent pull on her dress.

It is Lelia, again, clinging to her skirts to keep her balance, little round face turned upward. 

Rohanne cannot help the smile that crosses her face. 

They may not be her siblings by blood, but the twins are her kin, and the children of her most devoted protectors.

How could she not adore these two precious babes? 

How could she not do her utmost to protect them, to strive to suceed where she failed her own siblings. 

"What is it, sweetling?" Rohanne asks indulgently, pushing aside her maudlin thoughts. "What do you want?"

The toddler stretches her arms up, nearly falling onto her rear. 

Before she can do so, Rohanne catches her up, doing her best to conceal the effort it requires.

Lelia instantly clutches close to her, winding plump little hands into Rohanne's golden curls and tugging painfully. 

"No, let go," she says, but gives up as she always does when Lelia looks at her with those big, pleading eyes. "Oh very well then. Be gentle."

The toddler nods seriously, pudgy hands seperating the curls Jeyne had painstakingly arranged that morning. 

"Rohanne," another voice says from behind her, amusement evident in it. "You do not have to give Lelia her way in everything, you know."

"Yes, I know," Rohanne says, turning to her stepmother with her customary bright smile. "But look at those eyes, Allyria - how can you deny them anything?"

Allyria only smiles as her two year old daughter seemingly understands Rohanne's cue, turning her own head of golden curls to look pitifully at her mother. 

Allyria is not swayed however, and merely shakes her head, taking the child from her steppdaughter with ease and chucking Lelia under the chin. "Put those eyes away, little madam, I am not so easily fooled."

Turning back to Rohanne, she continues as if nothing had happened. "You look at those eyes, and you remember that giving children their own way in everything will only spoil them and leave them unfit to rule themselves, let alone a kingdom. That is how you deny those eyes, Rohanne."

Rohanne's thoughts do not turn to Rhaegar.

She never knew him.

But Visenya did, had loved and hated the man in equal measure, and she frowns.

She does not say anything, but by Allyria's face she does not need to. 

Her stepmother's words were, to any listening ear, about the rule of the Westerlands.

But the deeper meaning does not escape Rohanne, or the girl lying buried in her heart. 

Rhaegar Targaryen had been born into the most powerful dynasty Westeros had ever known, to a mother too young to be even away from the nursery and a father who cared little for a child by his unwanted, irritating child-bride of a sister.

He had been raised by maids and nurses and tutors, all of whom had been unable to say no to their future king.

And it had ruined him and his dynasty - he could not deny himself anything, not even a girl who was the daughter of one Lord Paramount and betrothed to another. 

What would his old tutors and nurses say, Visenya wonders, if she told them that the fall of the Targaryens could be partially blamed on them? 

The two of them stand in silence for a moment, watching the docks draw ever closer, and the party waiting for them become ever clearer.

Eventually, Allyria breaks the silence, changing the subject completely. "You really shouldn't pick up the twins so often, Rohanne. They are getting too big for your frame, and you could hurt yourself."

Rohanne frowns up at the older woman, the expression as weaponised as Lelia's eyes. "Neither should you be carrying them in your condition."

Allyria's hand drops almost unconsciously to her still-flat stomach, but she dismisses Rohanne's objection. "They are not heavy enough to cause me trouble, sweetling, though it is dear of you to worry so."

"I agree with Rohanne." Jaime says cheerfully, appearing seemingly out of nowhere with Gerold on his shoulders. "You really should take it easy now that we are away from Casterly Rock."

Allyria raises one sardonic eyebrow at her husband. "Ah yes, time spent with Doran and Oberyn and their growing horde of children will be restful indeed."

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't plot world domination with your cousins," Jaime says, still cheerful, the emblem of a careless, handsome young knight to any eavesdropping Westermen, "only that you don't need to run yourself ragged while we are away. Aunt Genna managed the Rock perfectly well before we were wed, and she will continue to do so during our absence."

Before Allyria can reply, Gerold finally notices Rohanne from her unusual position several feet below him and lunges for her so forcefully that Jaime staggers and nearly falls. 

Rather than whatever Allyria had been intending to say, a laugh escapes her at Jaime's predicament, trying to remove his son from his shoulders without dropping him as the toddler heedlessly strains towards the half-sister who has been with him every day of his short life. 

Rohanne takes pity on her father and reaches up for Gerold as Jaime drops to his knees to limit the distance his excitable son can fall should the little boy suceed in his aim. 

Her half-brother squeals in delight as she takes him, winding his arms about her neck and squeezing as he babbles incomprehensibly in her ear. 

Allyria frowns. "Rohanne, put him down, he is really too heavy for you now."

Ignoring her stepmother, Rohanne bounces her half-brother as she had seen her mother do her siblings a lifetime ago.

She has been withdrawn since they began the journey to Dorne, and she knows that the twins have sensed it, for they are even more clingy than they are ordinarily.

"Rohanne."

The warning tone in Allyria's voice is unmistakeable, and Rohanne reluctantly obeys as Jaime's voice joins his wife's. 

Ever since the twins grew taller than her waist, her guardians have been more and more reluctant to allow her to hold them for long periods of time, for fear that they are too heavy for her slight frame.

Gerold simply transfers his vicelike grip to her waist instead, using her to balance himself and glaring balefully at his parents. 

His mother sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose in an increasingly familiar manner. "Rohanne, I know you love the twins, but you cannot keep lifting them as you do. You could harm yourself carrying babes too big for you."

Before Rohanne can reply, Medea Marbrand arrives with several other Westerlands men and women in tow, and everything dissolves into a mess of preparation for the political dance ahead.

The twins' nursemaid Jeyne is quick to take Lelia from Allyria, and then has to all but drag Gerold away from Rohanne, pressing an absent kiss to the curls of the little girl whose charge is no longer hers as she wrangles an angry Gerold.

Medea Marbrand tuts over Rohanne as Allyria is distracted by Lissa's well-meaning fussing. "You cannot appear before the Martells in that state, girl. Bastard or no, they expect you to have done credit to Lady Allyria's teachings."

She rearranges the curls that Lelia had ruffled in her enthusiasm and straightens the dress that Gerold had well-nigh ripped in his reluctance to be parted from her. 

An assessing eye scans over Rohanne's form and she sighs. "You are in no state to attend a prince's court, but it will have to suffice."

Allyria, batting aside Lissa's worried fluttering, looks Rohanne over once more with a smile. "Thank you, Medea, you have done an excellent job. I am sure my cousins will be pleased with their fosterling."

Then there is the shudder as the ship docks, and the thud as the gangplank slams down against the quay. 

They are here. 

Jaime appears, tossing his head and throwing his sunlit curls out of order as he offers his arm to his wife with a beaming smile. 

The pair descend to the quay first, followed by Jeyne the nursemaid with the twins and Rohanne.

Doran looks every bit the Prince of Dorne, tall and strong and regal, with his lady wife and children by his side. 

Neither Doran nor Mellario have changed in the years since Rohanne last saw them, but Arianne and Quentyn have grown taller, their eyes brighter and their smiles slyer.

Beside his brother stands Oberyn, with Ellaria on his arm and his four daughters gathered around him. 

There is another babe on Ellaria's hip, who Rohanne assumes is his newest child - Elia Sand, the babe named for his murdered sister. 

It is a heavy legacy for any child, and she wishes the little girl well. Ellaria, from what Allyria has said of her childhood friend, is sensible however, and if anyone could raise a child to bear up under the weight of such a name it would be her - or so Allyria believes.

The Westerlands party all bow to the Prince, who inclines his head and then waves his hand. 

A woman Visenya vaguely recalls from her sun-bathed visit a world away steps forward, bearing bread and salt for the Guest Right. 

Rohanne sees her stepmother's veiled disgust at the overly salted bread, and the green tinge that reaches her cheeks. But Allyria swallows it and the nausea down with the same determination that left her the only one not retching during the storm that hit the ship on the way to Dorne, despite being newly pregnant.

As soon as the formalities are over, the Prince steps forward and embraces Allyria, who returns it equally fiercely. 

"You are welcome here, cousin." He says, pulling away to look her over with the eye of an elder kinsman. "We have missed you greatly."

Allyria smiles. "As I have missed Dorne, cousin."

Her accent has returned, Rohanne notes. 

It had quickly disappeared in favour of the crisp Westerlands accent after they arrived at the Rock, but mere moments after landing in Dorne her words are already drawling themselves out again. 

Rohanne herself suppressed her own slight drawl in favour of her guardian's crisp Westerlands' enunciation, but Allyria's ability to switch as occasion calls for it is nigh uncanny.

Oberyn steps forward to greet his cousin then, and the Prince turns to Jaime, greeting him warmly if not effusively, and then to the rest of the nobles in their party, though his greeting to these is much cooler. 

And then his attention turns to Rohanne. 

She steps forward when he beckons her, and Jaime and Allyria turn from where they had been speaking with Oberyn and Ellaria. 

"Your Highness," she says clearly, curtseying exactly as Allyria had drilled her - practiced and pretty, but artless, without the knife-edge perfection that Visenya had mastered so young.

Rohanne Lannister is a legitimised bastard, not a princess as Visenya Targaryen was, and it must show. 

She is trained, and educated, but she is not drilled to razor perfection. She is destined for a castle somewhere, and a quiet, uneventful life with a minor lord for a husband - not for the subtle, unforgiving world of court politics that surrounds the Iron Throne.

Doran smiles, though it does not reach his eyes. "You must be our newest fosterling, child."

"Yes, your Highness." Her eyes are wide and innocent, awed by the prescence of a real live prince. 

The Prince says a few more words of welcome, and then turns away, dismissing her implicitly.

*******

When they arrive at the Water Gardens, Allyria and Jaime's party are quickly hurried off to their quarters by Doran's servants. 

Allyria and Jaime, together with their children, have a more informal reunion with Allyria's cousins and their own children. 

Rather awkwardly, Rohanne stands off to the side with the twins, who have fisted their chubby hands into her skirts as they stare at all of these strange new people. 

Doran and Oberyn's children, of course, are all clustered around Allyria, who most of them have at least faint memories of. 

The princes themselves equally are overjoyed to have their cousin back with them - and at the prospect of her next child being born in the Water Gardens, as they all were.

As a result, the first person to cross the room to greet Rohanne and the twins is Mellario, in a flurry of bright silks that waft the scent of a hundred flowers in eddies about her.

She kneels down before them with a sweet smile. "Hello, you must be Gerold and Lelia."

The twins look to Rohanne, who musters a smile and curtseys deeply to the princess before she bends down to whisper into the twins' ears. "That's your Mama's cousin, Princess Mellario of Norvos. Can you say hello to her?"

Gerold mumbles something approximating a greeting, and Lelia lifts her head to wave shyly at the strange woman. 

A glimmer appears in Mellario's eyes when she sees Lelia's face, but she blinks it away, her smile returning bright as ever albeit with a slightly forced quality. "You have lovely eyes, Lelia. Has anyone told you that?"

She nods, shyly. "Mama's eyes."

"Yes," Mellario says, her voice very soft, every inch the sweet aunt Visenya remembers, "your mother's eyes."

Hearing his wife's words, Doran comes over to the children, Arianne trailing after him like a lost little puppy. 

When his eyes fall on the twins, his step hitches, and he too musters a smile that rings slightly hollow, "A lovely inheritance for any young maiden," he says softly. "You should be proud to bear those eyes, Lelia."

Lelia shrinks against Rohanne's skirt, a little afraid, but nods, the eyes in question wide and a little confused. 

Her uncle turns his attention to Gerold, with his pale hair and his aunt's smile, but Rohanne misses it as Arianne addresses her. "You're the Kingslayer's daughter."

It is blunt and tactless, and very much the cousin Visenya remembers. 

Rohanne blinks and then before she can reply, Mellario jumps in, despite her visible reluctance to defend Jaime Lannister's daughter. "Arianne, what has your father told you about that word?"

"Not to use it around the lions because Papa doesn't want to start another war." Arianne says begrudgingly, though Visenya cannot help thinking that the phrasing reminds her more of Oberyn and less of Doran. 

She does not say so, of course, merely smiling guilessly and bobbing a curtsey more fitted to one of the smallfolk than the granddaughter of a Lord Paramount, in hopes that the quaintness will endear her to Mellario. "It is a pleasure to meet you, your Highness."

Arianne frowns at her, though it is assessing rather than grumpy, resting on the stiff silk-velvet of her Western styled dress. "Papa says you'll be one of my playmates. You don't look very fun."

There is a challenge if ever Visenya heard one. 

Rohanne, Visenya, or dead Victoria, she has always been proud.

She looks Arianne dead in the eyes, smiling that soft, almost gentle smile Elia Martell had once been prone to pasting on her face when she wanted to watch someone die screaming. "Neither do you, all got up like that."

Arianne is still for a moment, her eyes flashing, and Rohanne prays that her gamble pays off. 

Thankfully, Mellaro is distracted by Lelia, and Doran by Gerold, so neither of them notice the dead woman's smile she wears, and Arianne is too young to truly remember it. 

After a long, tense moment, Arianne laughs. Then she holds out her hand in the Rhoynish fashion. 

It could be its own snub, Rohanne being presumed fully Andal, but Arianne is a child and Rohanne assumes that it is merely habit on the other girl's part rather than malice, and shakes it easily. 

"I see why Papa said we'd be friends then, Rohanne." Arianne says blithely. "Come and meet Tyene, my cousin."

As if by magic, Tyene appears by Arianne's side, smiling blandly at her.

She is as angelic as ever, her dimples as pronounced, her eyes as blue, her voice as sweet. 

Rohanne smiles and bobs another polite curtsey to the prince's daughter. "Good morrow, my lady."

"Good morrow," Tyene says sweetly, blue eyes taking every inch of her. "You must be Rohanne Lannister."

Rohanne swallows down the tears that spring to Visenya's eyes and the lump that rises in her throat. 

Arianne, Tyene and Visenya had been, for a few blissful moons, inseperable. Bound by blood and bound by friendship.  

But those bonds have been severed by time and distance and death, and what little remains of them is held in her heart alone. 

Neither girl recognises their dead cousin in the face of the Kingslayer's bastard, and they are too young to see the howling grief that eats up the core of her.

Whatever they become now, it will not be the same, for it be built on a lie. 

Rohanne smiles. "Yes I am," she says, just as sweetly. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

*********

There was no feast, not when so many of Dorne's preeminent nobles are mere days away from the Water Gardens. 

There is only a quiet dinner taken in the privacy of family. 

Doran with his wife and children, and Oberyn with Ellaria and his daughters.

Or, Rohanne supposes that is how Visenya's uncles had supped. Perhaps the brothers and their families have spent the evening together. 

She does not know, for Jaime and Allyria have seized the opportunity to eat quietly with their children after the long journey.

All of them had retired early, and the twins are already asleep when Jaime slips into the guest chambers Rohanne is sharing with her half-siblings. 

She is tired, but not at all sleepy, and lifts her head from the pillow as soon as her father enters.

He hands her a light cloak to combat the evening chill, and wordlessly leads her out to where Areo Hotah waits for them. 

The tall man leads them through the corridors and hallways of the palace without a sound, and without encountering another soul. 

Visenya is thoroughly turned around by the time they reach their destination, a door that she takes a moment to recognise as the one to Doran's office. 

At Areo Hotah's gesture, she opens it and enters, barely conscious of Jaime following her and closing the door as her uncle's bodyguard takes up his post outside of it. 

Inside, Doran and Oberyn await them, standing before Doran's great desk, draped in the same silks as they had worn earlier in the day despite the chill that has Visenya shiverig through her cloak. 

There is a moment's silence, and then Doran and Oberyn sweep into deep bows almost in perfect unison.

"My queen," Doran says softly. "Dorne is yours."

Without a moment's hesitation, barely acknowledging the prince's formal greeting, Rohanne throws herself forwards.

She collides with her elder uncle's legs and clings there, burying her face in the sunset coloured silk. 

Doran quickly straightens from his bow, lifting her in his arms and crushing her to him. 

"Visenya," he breathes, disbelieving, as if he is afraid she will disappear if he speaks out loud, "Visenya."

She curls into his embrace, surrounded by the scent of sun and sand and spices, that she associates so painfully with her mother.

Her mother, Elia Martell, queen-in-waiting and Dornish princess. 

She has barely thought of her over the past two years, quashing down everything that made her Visenya in favour of laughing, innocent Rohanne.

She had to, living under Tywin Lannister's very nose as she did.

If she failed to hold up her mask, she courted torment and death for her and all those who risked everything for her.

She has been nothing but Rohanne from the moment she left Sunspear.

But here and now, held in her uncle's arms, she cannot be anything but Visenya. 

"Uncle," she whispers in return, hardly able to speak through the lump in her throat. 

An aching tingle rushes over her, and she blinks tears away from eyes as deep a violet as Rhaegar Targaryen's had ever been. 

For the first time in years, Rohanne Lannister melts away and Visenya Targaryen breathes the cool evening air of Dorne. 

Notes:

I am back!
No idea how long for though, as my A levels begin next month and if I don't get straight As I will cry.

Also for the portion at the start, please imagine Rohanne (who is like...the small side for an 8 year old and also Shirley Temple level adorable) holding a two year old that's like...solidly well-grown and heavy, but she's glaring at anyone who tries to take it off her. Like, this kid is basically 2/3 of her height so really she should not be carrying it around but she will fight anyone who says otherwise. I just want everyone to have this image in their heads, it's what kickstarted me to come back to this series.