His brother's feet now looked... normal.
In fact, if one looked closely enough, they could find a hint of muscle in the lower thigh of his brother's previously atrophied legs.
"Unbelievable," Oberyn exclaimed with a hint of wonder in his voice.
"That is exactly what the Maester said," Doran answered in a smug voice, "The old man was almost hyperventilating trying to find some other reason for this miraculous recovery than the cure you had given me."
"I do not blame him," Oberyn said with a shrug as he leaned back, "After all, who would have believed that just a simple change of diet and a few hours of exercise in water daily could do so much for you, when more than a decade of medicine did nothing."
"Who indeed?"
"You did not either, if I remember correctly," Oberyn said teasingly, "You gave me quite the look of exasperation and pity when I handed you the small piece of parchment containing the cure, telling me that I had been duped."
"Fortunately for me, you were persistent enough to disregard my dismissal and forced me to follow through with this, otherwise seven forbid, this precious opportunity might have just passed me by," Doran said with a warm smile, "And for that I am very grateful, to you and to the person who gave you this cure..." he said before he went back behind the table to resume his meal, "Speaking of which, is it not time for you to tell me who this mysterious benefactor of mine is,"
Oberyn considered it for a few seconds before shrugging, "Why not?"
The only reason he had decided not to tell his brother about Jon in the first place was that he didn't want him to be biased against the cure just on the principle of it being from the North. After all, his brother was already skeptical enough; he did not want him to see the cure as a conspiracy, but now that they knew it was real...
"Do you remember when I told you that Obara and I left our previous sellswords company in Essos and joined a new one during our last few months there..."
"Yes... What of it?"
"Well, the name of the company we joined was called the Northern Wolf shipping..." Oberyn said with an amused look, as his brother Doran immediately froze after hearing the name, "And the one who gave me the cure is the owner of said company."
"...the one which is said to have been created by the Bastard from the North?"
"Yes,"
"The one who almost single-handedly revolutionised the trade between Volantis and Braavos? The one who killed the ruthless Pirate King, Ravager, and is now almost solely responsible for all the mayhem in the seas surrounding Stepstones?"
"The very same one,"
"So this cure really came from the North, huh," Doran said before taking a deep breath and leaning back in his chair, not knowing how to feel about this.
"Directly from the hands of the son of Eddard Stark,"
The Prince of Dorne was silent for a moment before he asked aloud, "But why? What does this mean? What could they be after?"
"You think too much, brother." Oberyn rolled his eyes, "The boy Jon Snow is a friend of mine, and he probably just wanted to help, so he helped... There is nothing hidden underneath here."
Doran completely ignored his brother's naive opinions and began thinking intensely about all the possible reasons, trying to look at it from different angles, 'Is it an elaborate scheme? Or maybe a subtle invitation for an alliance? Or is it really just the whims of a young child—'
"Ah, how could I forget about that!" Doran exclaimed as he suddenly began rummaging through the heaps of paper on his desk.
"What are you looking for, brother?" Oberyn asked curiously.
"This," Doran said with a satisfied look on his face while showing his brother an intricate piece of white paper that had the signature of the hand of the king as the sender.
"What is this?"
"An invitation! To a tourney that Robert Baratheon is hosting in a few months,"
"And?" Oberyn asked with a confused look, as there are usually more than half a dozen such invitation in any given year, as everytime the King wanted to hold a tourney, etiquette dictated that all the great house get an invitation, whether they attend or not, "What is different about this invitation that has you so enthusiastic, brother?"
"The difference between this tourney and the others is that it is being held in honour of a young boy, who made the unbelievable achievement of defeating a Pirate King at fourteen years of age, and for that feat he is about to become the youngest knight in history."
"What?!" Oberyn burst out with a stupefied expression before he immediately sat up and snatched the letter from his brother. And sure enough, his eyes immediately zeroed in on the name Jon Snow written in bold, beautiful writing.
This news came out of nowhere for Oberyn, making him wonder why Jon had ommitted such an important piece of information in his last letter because he obviously must have known about it, and more importantly why had he not changed the timing of the plans yet, was he perhaps going to ignore the invitation, but that would be rude and idiotic considering the relationship of the North with Crown, so that did not make sense either...
While Oberyn was grappling with this sudden news, his brother dropped another surprise in a conversational tone, "Perhaps, I shall go and attend this tourney in person..."
"Huh, What?! Why?" Oberyn asked dumbfoundedly, looking at his brother as if trying to make sure that he really was Doran and not a duplicate from the House of Black and White.
"Why not?" Doran shrugged with a nonchalant look on his face, "It is the least I could do for the boy, who managed to cure me when everyone else failed. Plus, it would give me the chance to get a feel for the atmosphere surrounding all the nobles of the kingdom, see what has changed."
"But..." Oberyn hesitated for a few seconds before he decided to speak his mind, "You know that they are all going to be there, right? The King, the Lannisters, and maybe even Tywin himself, so..."
"So?" Doran asked with a smile while looking at him as if Oberyn was the one who was being absurd, "What does it matter if they are there? Do you think that I am afraid of them, brother? Or perhaps you think that I can't control myself and would do something stupid..."
"Um, yes," Oberyn answered unsurely.
"You give me too little credit," Doran said with a gleam in his eyes, before he suddenly pushed his wheelchair back to give himself space, "The only reason I have been hiding inside Water Gardens for the past few years was that I did not want people to see me as weak, to see me as a vulnerability, but now..." he suddenly grunted and slowly with only a little bit of difficulty stood up, "Things are different," he continued as he unhurriedly began to walk towards the window without the support of anything but his own legs, "I am no longer a symbol of House Martell weakness," he said while looking down at the Shadow city with a sharp look in his eyes, "It is time for me to get back in the game,"
Oberyn was so surprised at seeing his brother walk on his own for the first time in more than a decade that he almost missed his brother's enlightening speech.
And, when he did hear his declaration, the first that came to his mind was, 'Maybe it is time to tell him the truth about Jon...'
The second prince hesitated for quite a while, but in the end, he convinced himself that it would be better to tell his brother when their mission was completed successfully.
And if the mission turned out to be a failure...
Well, that would be the headache for the living, wouldn't it?
...
It was almost an hour later that Oberyn left his brother's chamber with a tired look on his face.
He had tried hard to dissuade Doran from following through with this whim of his of going to King's Landing, but his brother was unusually determined this time, and in the end, Oberyn had to give up.
They had moved on to discussing other things after that, among which was Oberyn informing his brother that he was going to be away from Dorne for a few short weeks to finish some business in Essos, which was not very uncommon for him, so his brother was not suspicious at all.
This meant that Oberyn was now almost fully prepared for his trip, leaving just the tiny hurdle of telling his daughters that he was going to be away from Dorne for a while, and that no, he was not taking any of them with him this time.
"You were in there for an unusually long time, father," a sweet voice echoed across the corridor just as Oberyn reached the end of the passageway, "I had almost fallen asleep waiting for you."
"Sarella?" Oberyn exclaimed in a surprised voice as he turned around to see the beautiful face of his most studious daughter, "When did you get back from the Citadel?"
"She came home a week ago, father," The voice answering came not from Sarella, but behind him. He turned back to find Nymeria, his second oldest daughter, come out of her hiding at the end of the corridor with a sneaky smile on her face, "She was quite sad when she found out that you were not home but out there hunting some bandits... which she found quite unusual."
Oberyn alternatively looked at the faces of his daughters, one looked mature, languid, and elegant with her creamy white skin and her long black braid bound up in red-gold wire, while the other had her hair cut a bit short to aid in her deception of masquerading as boy to blend among the acolytes in Citadel, but she too was beauty with her olive skin and dark brown eyes she got from her summer-islander mother.
One was a deadly fighter who would never be found alone without at least a dozen knives on her person, while the other had the sharpest of minds along with an insatiable curiosity and a reputation for pushing in where she doesn't belong.
"Why do I feel that I am being ambushed here... Am I missing something? " Oberyn asked with an amused smile on his face, "And if I am being ambushed, then I must say... You did not bring enough power to the fight."
"Why would you think that we are ambushing you, Father?" Sarella asked in a deceptively innocent voice, "Do you do something wrong? Were you trying to hide something from your dear daughters?"
"What are you talking about—"
"Sarella figured it out, father," Nymeria interrupted with an impatient yet eager expression on her face, that immediately had her sister rolling her eyes as she gave the game away too quickly, "She knows all about your ploy,"
"Er, what ploy are you talking about?" Oberyn replied outwardly, looking very confused, while inwardly sweating at how sharp his little girls were.
"The ploy that you had been cooking for almost two months," Sarella stated with a complacent smile, that seemed eerily similar to a cat after a successful hunt, "Let me guess, you just told Uncle Doran that you would be gone for a while for some business..."
"Um..." Oberyn wavered for just a moment before he realised that they were going to find out about it anyway, which meant that there was no point in lying, so he nodded his head, "Yes, but it is just a short trip to Essos to get something that I had commissioned a while back. There is no—"
"Don't patronize me, Father. You may be able to fool Obara, and the others, but not me—"
Oberyn coughed, "Sarella—"
"Don't even try," His daughter interrupted him once again, "Nym told me that ever since you came back from Essos, you have been at the training grounds from morning till dawn. And that every time she saw you, you were either training your forms, working on your strength or fighting against that massive fellow from the guard force. Not only that, you have also stopped indulging in wine and spicy food and are now only eating the bland nutritious shit that perhaps only a Maester could have recommended you,"
"Er—"
"And most importantly, you have been making regular unneeded trips to kill bandits every time even a hint of them appears, even if they are set up far away from here," The girl finished it all in one breath before an adorable smile appeared on her face, "You are preparing, Father. Preparing for a hunt... and considering that there are only a handful of people in Westeros, who would require you to spend so much effort, I can guess that it will be a deadly and difficult one.... so I want to be a part of it,"
"We want to be part of it," Nymeria added forcefully, as if trying to tell them not to forget about her.
Oberyn looked at his daughters with a dark, dangerous gaze that he used to employ to intimidate them with when they were little, but it seemed his little girls had grown up as they glared back with equal intensity without backing down.
"No," Oberyn stated finally in a decisive tone.
"Why not?" Nymeria whined immediately, breaking the stoic face that she had been making a second ago, "I am one of the best fighters in Dorne, and Sarella is no slouch either, so we won't hold you back."
"Plus, I am better at making poison than you are, father—"
"Debatable, but still no," Oberyn said definitively shaking his head, "It is going to be a very dangerous trip, and I do not want you to be a part of it, end of discussion."
"Fine, then you leave us no choice..." Sarella sighed, raising her in defeat, "We will have to tell the other sisters, and then perhaps you will have to bring all of us."
"Are you trying to threaten me?" Oberyn asked with narrowed eyes.
"Yes," Sarella replied fearlessly, "After all, I learned it from the best," she added with a cheeky grin on her face.
Oberyn had a fierce look on his face for a few moments, but then he sighed helplessly as he realised that the battle was already lost.
"Fine, we leave in a week."
"YES!!"
'Sevens! Why did you not give me sons that I could beat the shit out of...'
///