Olenna could not help the smile spreading over her face as she watched Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, knight her grandson. He had earned it, she knew. Even with no battle or obvious strife, young Loras had earned this in a way many knights had not. He had seen his liege lord rushing into danger, and had followed at his own peril. That was more than many seasoned knights could claim. It had taken moons, nearly half a year, for Loras to regain his full strength, but now that he had, he looked stronger and more determined than ever, and Olenna could not remember the last time she had been so proud of anyone. She glanced out the corner of her eye, caught sight of her Margaery, her belly large and swollen beneath the clothes she had sewn at Loras' bedside. She looked ready to burst, but also content.
No, that was not the word. Olenna had been content for most of her life. Margaery, she looked more than that. She looked happy, radiantly so, and the way her eyes softened when they settled upon her husband was more than enough to warm even Olenna's old, frozen heart. There would be a babe within a sennight, if Olenna was not very mistaken, and it would be lovely. For all that they were painfully young, the both of them, Olenna could not help but think they would be far better parents than most. Another point of pride for her.
Down in Dorne, Garlan had wed as well, and Olenna had travelled with Jaehaerys, Benjen Stark and Ser Arthur Dayne to attend the festivities, and just a moon ago they had received a raven announcing that Arianne Martell was expecting the next ruler of the southernmost kingdom.
All they needed was the Iron Throne, and she would be fit to burst with all her family had accomplished. And to be honest, right here and now, watching everything playing out in front of her, she did not mind the wait. She was a patient woman. Every small success now would make the big success later that much sweeter, and that much more earned, not that the Tyrells had not been working to earn it for the past three centuries. Still, she struggled to even recall songs of a Targaryen monarch looking upon his queen like Jaehaerys looked upon Margaery. She struggled to remember as proud and deserving a knight as her Loras. And never before had Tyrell blood been in line for Sunspear. Her pride was well earned.
Something within her fluttered with an almost childish giddiness as she looked on her Margaery's Lord Husband again. It had been five moons since her granddaughter had pulled her into the Lord's chambers, silent and seeming almost struck speechless. The boy had been sitting there, on the floor of his bedchamber with four tiny, newly hatched dragons climbing all over him. He had turned to face them, and in the firelight, his eyes had looked almost purple. Olenna would prefer not to remember how close she had come to fainting, how only Margaery's hand on her elbow had kept her knees from buckling.
Before that, when she had first resigned herself to her granddaughter's marriage, she had also resigned herself to usurping the Usurper, to putting another pretender on the Throne. At least this one was good-hearted and clever and would make her Margaery queen. But a usurper nonetheless. She had resigned herself to spurning Prince Viserys if he ever returned from exile, to lying the rightful heir to the House her own owed so much to, in the face.
She had decided, on the day of the wedding, to forget the truth, to do her best to believe and to never think on the matter of the boy's true origins. For the sake of her granddaughter, her House, to keep growing strong, it was what she would have to do. So she had allowed herself to focus on those of the boy's features that seemed so deceptively Targaryen, on the faith of his Valyrian bannermen, on his skill with a sword, the love his people had for him, and the quiet dignity with which he held himself. To put her faith in the humility and good heart her grandson could never seem to get enough of telling her about, the knight's heart without the title of 'Ser'.