"Are you sure that this is the place, Father?" Nymeria asked with an eyebrow raised in scepticism as she squinted to try and see through the darkness.
The time was just before dawn, with only a hint of light from the half moon shining down giving them just a hint of visibility otherwise, they would have been completely blind and would not even have made it to this spot.
"Yes. I am quite sure," Oberyn replied distractedly while untying the luggage from his horse.
He had been expressly told to travel light, so the only things the man had bought with him were his weapons, his other weapons, his poison kit, and two changes of clothes.
"But there is nothing here," Nymeria cried in a confused voice, "I look left, I see nothing but sand, I look right, the same. And there is nothing behind us for leagues and leagues. With the big wide ocean in the front, how is anyone even supposed to find us here?"
"Nymeria is right," Sarella commented while unloading her luggage with a thoughtful expression on her face, as if trying to solve a puzzle, "How did your contact even manage to give this location to you? There are no distinct landmarks around us..."
"He did not need to," Oberyn answered with a shrug as he went on to unload his daughter Nymeria's luggage, who was too busy scouting the surroundings to do it herself. Hers was almost twice as heavy as Oberyn's luggage had been, and this was after he had reprimanded her thrice about excess load, "My friend just told me to find the nearest isolated coast and head towards there. He is supposed to meet us here at the break of dawn."
"Is this friend of yours really trustworthy?" Nymeria asked in a doubtful tone, her hand unconsciously sheathing and unsheathing the dagger at her waist, "Are you sure you were not duped by a crook, I mean I know that—Wait!! What are you—"
But her shouts went ignored as Oberyn commanded, "Go!" while slapping his horse's backside making it loudly neigh and take off, with the other two startled beasts following it soon after.
"W-Why would you do that, Father?!" Nymeria asked in a dumbfounded voice, "That was our way back!! What are we going to do if no one shows up?" she whined, her voice sounding a little hysterical, "We would have to walk for days to reach the nearest village, and we did not even bring any food because you wanted us to travel light,"
"And?" Oberyn asked back with a raised eyebrow, unmoved by the panic on his daughter's face, "Were you two, not the ones who wanted to go on an adventure with your old man? So why are you so scared of just a few days of walking? How are you then going to cope with all the difficulties ahead? Are you really sure you are ready for this trip?"
"But—"
"Calm down, Nymeria," Sarella interjected after taking a deep breath, having calmed down from her shock of seeing their horses run away, "Father is right. We promised him that we would follow all his orders while we are with him, so if he says it is fine for us to lose our only mode of travelling in the middle of nowhere then... we just need to believe in him." she told Nymeria in a serious voice, making the girl look away with a pout at the sudden lecture, "That said, I don't think our father would have done it if he did not have some kind of assurance that we will be quickly found," she whispered to Nymeria with a smile, "Though for the life of me I can not figure out how," she mumbled to herself with a frustrated glance at her surroundings.
"Oh, do not be so sure, my dear daughter," Oberyn said with a smirk, "Maybe I just wanted to teach my girls a lesson and this is all just an elaborate hoax,"
"No, that is not it," Sarella replied with an confident smile on her face, "Not only would that be too complicated for you, but you are also lazier than Arriane when it comes to trivial matters, so lesson or not, there is no chance of you waking up so early if you were not sure about the time of our pick up."
"Hm, I feel like there is an insult somewhere in there," Oberyn mumbled with a frown on his face. "What do you think?" he asked while turning towards his other daughter.
"Ugh! Who knows?" Nyermia replied, raising her hands in exasperation, before she unceremoniously sat down on the sand, "I don't understand half the things she says... so how long do we even have to wait?"
Oberyn rolled his eyes but replied nonetheless, "Like I said, he will arrive at the crack of dawn, and—"
"Which, if I am not wrong..." Sarella interrupted while pointing towards the horizon in the East, "...is already upon us."
And she was right, as just a few seconds after her pointing it out, the first rays of the sun shone upon the sand dunes of Dorne, turning them a beautiful gold.
"So, the dawn is here... but there is still no sign of that ship of yours," Nymeria murmured while scouting the dark, wide ocean with her eyes narrowed, trying to pick out a ship-sized shadow.
"Give it a few minutes," Oberyn said calmly, while placing his far-eye on his eye, "I am sure he will—Oh, there it is,"
"What? Where?!" Both of Oberyn's daughters exclaimed as they followed his line of sight, and sure enough, after a few seconds of searching, they were able to pick out the pebble-size shape of a dark ship that was steadily getting bigger as it approached the shore.
"They really managed to find our exact location, huh?" Nymeria let out in an amazed voice.
"B-But how is this even possible?" Sarella asked in disbelief, "They shouldn't even have been able to see in the darkness. How did they even know that we would be here?"
"Oh, that's Jon for you," Oberyn said with a shrug as if that explained everything, "He does these kinds of things from time to time, so it would be good for your mental health if you do not try and figure him out, and just go with the flow... otherwise, you will be left pulling your hair out all night long, with no answers to show for,"
"You say that as if he is a witch or something like that," Sarella said with a snort, but got stunned when her father did not deny her immediately.
"Who knows?" Oberyn murmured with a nonchalant look on his face, "I don't,"
"Here they come," Nymeria interrupted in an eager voice as she stood up from the sand, "But, wait! Why are they stopping all the way there?"
That ship was still more than 15 knots away from the shore when it suddenly stopped approaching them and just floated there, bobbing in its place up and down.
"Considering the ship's size and the shallow water along the beach... it makes sense that they stopped there," Sarella said with a frown on her face, "But still... they don't expect us to swim all the way there, do they?"
"Of course not," Oberyn answered with a shake of his head, "Jon knows that we have our luggage with us so he would not make us swim to the ship, especially not in these currents."
"Then how are we supposed to cross the—"
"Aha, there comes our ride," Oberyn exclaimed with a smile on his face while pointing towards a small boat that suddenly came into view from around the ship.
"Finally," Nymeria said with a hint of excitement in her tone as she hurriedly bent down to pick up her luggage from the sand, "Let's go,"
"Wait!" Oberyn said with an absurd expression on his face, "Am I seeing things or is that boat completely empty?"
"What? Don't be absurd." Sarella scoffed while snatching the far-eye from her father's hand, "How can a boat move without anyone to row..." the girl trailed off and her jaw dropped down when she realised that her father was right, there indeed was no one on the boat, "How is this even possible?" she whispered dumbfoundedly.
"There is always something new to see with that lad," Oberyn muttered while shaking his head with a wry smile on his face.
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