The weary army, some 3,000 strong, has marched amidst dunes and hard-baked earth. What happened at the Boneway was a humiliation, some might say, and most are pleased to have seen the last of it. But the desert, even in autumn, even with a breeze from the south, is oppressively hot. The line stretches and stretches, pock-marked with knots of wagons carrying supplies… and in one case, carrying a prisoner, though one without chains. She rides besides a carter, urging his horses on, a veil across her face to keep out sand and the worst of the sun. Red of hair, a dusting of freckles beneath her eyes, Alyx Sand moves nearer and nearer to Sunspear, where Prince Marence means to announce her punishment.
Liane Uller is dressed much as she has during the Prince’s expedition - oversized robes in firey-red and sunny-yellow that do much to conceal the leather jack she wears beneath. If that makes her look heavier than at Sunspear, her gaunt face might suggest otherwise. She barely ate on the ship ride, the anxiety of war and of trying (and failing miserably) to redeem women she thought would hear her voice have not helped her appetite any. The heat and stifling atmosphere are worse in armor, she finds, but she decides that movement may help. So, back down the line to see if she can speak to her bastard cousin Alyx, the cousin that was as much her sister as anyone could be, the Alyx that Liane made plans with to lead a rebellion if the Northerners invaded. Oaths were sworn and Liane broke them. That Alyx.
The army trundles on, and the cart, and when Alyx catches a glimpse of Liane approaching, she… watches flatly, her gaze guarded. “Coz,” she says, when Liane’s within ear shot. “How does the day find you?” She glances to the carter, who acts as guard as well, but the man feigns not hearing anything and keeps his eyes ahead.
Liane has brought her weapons along too, though she is not sure why. Still, her spear and bow are there. “Alyx.” she says in greeting, but it is also not especially enthusiastic. “Well-enough, under the circumstances. They are treating you well, I expect?” She turns to trudge on next to the cart as it begins to pass her. “Your sister seems to be well, as little as I see her. Your father, also.” she offers politely.
“Well enough,” is Alyx’s clipped reply. The mention of Jinny and her father, however, weigh on her—banditry in the Boneway did not offer much chance for news of home—and so she asks, after a silence, “And the rest? Selwyn, and Gavin?” And then, after another awkward pause, she says, “I hope your brother is well. I’d heard he’d become a septon, or near enough.”
“Selwyn I only see in passing, and with Gavin at the Citadel I see him never.” Liane says. She sighs. “I will never see Oldtown, nor Highgarden. When I was a hostage the aunt of the heir to the Reach promised me that we would go to see the flowers at Highgarden… but now they’d kill me because of my name.” She shrugs at mention of her brother. “And blind too, or near it. I try not to think about it.” She looks back to Alyx. “What of you and your man?”
Alyx Sand shrugs, and spreads her arms. “I’m as you see me, coz,” she says. “Bound for my doom. One of the guards say he hears I’m to get my neck stretched, for banditry. And Rhys…” She turns, glancing back down the colum, to another set of wagons, one of which carries a cage of wood and steel brought from Yronwood. Cheap cloth covers it, giving shade, but everyone knows it’s where Red Rhys of the Scourge, the most notorious robber knight in Dorn and mayhaps the whole Seven Kingdoms, is being held. “Him, too. Mayhaps we’ll have a last dance together on the gallows.” It’s morbid talk, and she doesn’t sound cheerful, but if there was a time for tears, that’s long done.
But it’s not long done. Though she’s hot and thirsty, Liane has water enough for tears. “I have tried to save you, more than once. I made myself look a fool for you before the Prince, he gave me leave to offer his pardon and for Rhys also. I came all the way here, through fire and blood and war to try and see you back home… and the Yronwood too.” she swipes at her eyes for a moment, composing herself. “I _begged_ him, Alyx. I would have done anything to have the chance to see you returned, and you both spit in my face.” Now she’s working herself into a fury. “I told the Sand Dog’s wife I would cut out her tongue if she spoke ill of you, and for what? So you and Linnet Yronwood could have your joke? Is it funny now? Are you laughing? I came here hoping I would take the day, so I could ask the Prince for a boon to make my marriage possible…” she rubs her eyes, which is a mistake. “...now I’ll lose you and look the fool and he’ll probably never speak to me again.”
Alyx watches the tears, and then looks away as Liane makes her plea. “Linnet’s bloody joke was on me,” she muttered. A silence again, an uncertain moment, and then he turns to look at her cousin. “You shouldn’t have done that, coz. Put yourself out. You had made your choice. You should have left me to mine.” Her lips are pursed, as she struggles… not with tears, but other emotions. And then: “Why do you care if the Prince talks to you? He sold Dorne to Daeron, and sold Dorne’s pride to Baelor, for a coward’s peace.”
“Not the Prince, Ga..” Liane doesn’t finish the name as she glances to the driver for a moment. “I cannot be married unless this man is able to protect me, at least politically. The Prince promised that he would be the Royal Treasurer someday, and I hoped that if I brokered the peace I could press the Prince to keep his promise.” That seems safe enough to say, at least. ” She shakes her head. “What do I care about pride or peace or anything anymore? All I wanted was you back, back home. You were all I had left, and I would have done anything. But everything I have done has been worth nothing. No one cares about the past anymore, of past ties.” she looks away, down the line they are travelling, trudging along. “Still, I will beg him again. But I doubt you will kneel even when the rope is slung over the gallows beam. Then you will leave me too.”
“Past ties ended with the Surrender of Sunspear,” Alyx insists, and the look she gives Liane is harder. “Some of us made the choice to surrender with it. Others didn’t. You had a choice, coz.” She crosses her arms, sitting there on the wagon, now looking ahead. A longer moment… and then she says, “Ask Ser Mavros, then. He’s the one that caught us, isn’t he? The one who had Linnet Yronwood trick us, and give us over. Doubtless the prince owes him something for it.”
“I did surrender, I swore we’d both go to the desert and fight, but I thought I was doing the right thing.” Liane says numbly. “There was no one else, except Mavros and your father… who does not want to be Lord Uller, I suppose. And Mavros… well, I will ask of him nothing. He has stolen everything from me and I will not forget it. I came to try to free him too, I even thought to trade myself for him… for all the good it did me.” She marches along dutifully as always. “I have made a great deal of poor choices, Alyx. I should not have troubled you.” she is silent for a few moments. “Should I bother asking the Prince for your life, or will that spoil your defiant exit from the world?” she asks, bitterly.
A shrug from Alyx’s shoulders, her jaw set in that familiar way Liane knows, stubborn and adamant. “Do what you like. Make your choice as your own woman, coz, as I made mine.” She glances away, and takes a breath—and maybe, too, the time for tears isn’t quite over for her. She blinks hard and takes a deep breath, as the wagon continues apace, and the wagon driver ignores the conversation resolutely. She looks back, words a little softer, or perhaps wearier. “I don’t blame you, Liane. We all made choices, good and bad. But think of yourself, more, the next time—you can’t control anyone’s fate, but your own, after all.”
“You’re all I have left, Alyx. Everyone else is dead or so far away that I will never see them again.” A bit of hyperbole, as there are living relations yet. “I have thought of myself. That’s all I think about. That’s all I have ever thought about.” She stops following, and turns back towards the carts behind, especially the covered one. She lifts her spear, her eyes narrowing in thought and possibly malice.
Alyx the Witch frowns at that—at the words, at the stopping, and the weapons being hoisted as Liane looks back—and she calls after, “Then do it. Think of yourself, coz. Your man, your inheritance, your bloody future—and think on what being stupid now will cost you.” But she doesn’t stop the cart; indeed, the driver gives her a warning look, suggesting she’s supposed to stay with him.
Liane’s shoulders fall and she turns to march towards Sunspear again. “No doubt my future will be bloody enough.” she says, defeated. “I won’t do it. I was afraid before you left, I was afraid after, and I’m afraid now. I just wanted to punish someone besides myself.” She shrugs again as she catches up to the cart. “I suppose he must have made you happy, I owe him that, at least.” Liane does her best to speed up, to pull away from the cousin, but still she looks back. “If you ever cared for me, you will bend the knee to the Prince. If you ever cared you will not throw away the past as Linnet did. Pride will not keep me from pleading for your life one last time. But remember, if you reject the Prince you will be happy and safe in your grave and no one will ever let me forget my foolishness.”
A half-smile, against her judgment, falls across Alyx’s lips and she tells her cousin, “Seven hells, I think you mean it. Well… I’ll think on it, coz. I’d not hurt you, if I can avoid it.”
Liane keeps pulling away. “I should have brought a bloody horse.” she mutters. “I want you to be there to see my children, coz.” she says, mustering some cheer. “Don’t make me speak of you in the past tense.” So she goes. Perhaps the wind picking up moves her along?