Oberyn Martell made sure to issue a personal challenge, as discretely as he knew how, towards any and every lord who saw fit to call Lord Stark a craven for not taking the field in the tourney. The ones who were just too lowly for him, he had his daughters or nephews challenge.
"But Father," Obara said before he sent her out to her first brawl. "Why should we give one damn what one Crownlands lord says about another?"
The challenge, Oberyn remembered, had been given by one of those new Lords of Duskendale, whatever their name was these days. Or, more aptly, the Duskendale upstart had thought to challenge Jon Stark, who had turned him down, only for Oberyn to present Obara's challenge. His girl should be able to do this with no issue whatsoever. He walked a step closer, grasped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. They were so like his own it took his breath away sometimes. "Do you remember when my sister Elia and her daughter visited the Water Gardens?" he asked. He knew very well that she did. She had still been a young girl then, clumsy and not yet grown into her broad shoulders and strong arms. Rhaenys, in her high little voice, had challenged anyone who had dared say a word against her much older
cousin. From that day, Oberyn's loyalty towards his sister's children had been absolute, even, for the past few years, towards the stepson Elia had never had a chance to claim for her own. Oberyn, however, had no doubt she would have, especially if she had had the chance to see the young man her stepson had grown up to become, all the best sides of Rhaegar, but with the dirt of him displaced by sheer Northern, well, Northerness. Oberyn did not pretend to understand them, or how they operated, but this solemn, serious boy whose reputation already warned most sensible men off him... Not only would Elia have claimed him; Oberyn would too, given half the chance and half the common cause they already had.
Obara gave a sharp nod. Without a word, Oberyn walked close enough to her to press their foreheads together. "The Lord is your cousin's little brother," he breathed, keeping his voice so low he was not even certain his own daughter, well trained though her ears were, would understand. "Every insult towards him or his is an insult towards little Rhaenys, you understand?"
Obara gave another swift nod. Her eyes, however, were still inquisitive. "If my cousin," she started, and Oberyn could not help but smile at the thought of how Elia would have smiled at that word, "can fight for himself, why should I fight for him?"
"Your cousin," Oberyn said, rolling his eyes obligingly, "Is part Northman. They believe tourneys to be mere frivolities and that it is folly to let the enemy know your true skill with any weapon, let alone your preferred one. Not that it will do your cousin much good. There is much talk, even with no tourney to support it, that Jon Stark is the Sword of the Morning come again, only younger and fiercer. There is wisdom in it, however." He paused a moment, looked straight at his firstborn daughter, tried to make her someone pick up his thoughts and feelings within him having to find those impossible, half-treacherous words. "Let them have their legends without tasting the real thing until it is time. Let your cousin surprise them when it comes time for us to have our vengeance. Until then, we will let no slight on his name go unpunished. You understand me, girl?"
She gave yet another nod. "I understand you, Father," she said. She paused for a moment, looking half the fierce snake he was so proud of and half the uncertain girl he had first taken in so many years ago. "Could I fight him, do you think?" she asked. Now a smile did bloom upon her face. "No audience, no stakes, no injuries. I just want to know that the man who is little Rhaenys' little brother is not some cunt who does not know how to hold a weapon."
Oberyn nodded. "I will see what I can do," he promised. A few hours later, he watched as his (step) nephew deposited his young son into his wife's arms. He was reminiscent of Rhaegar in some ways, but at the same time, he was so different it took Oberyn's breath away. He looked upon his son the same way Oberyn looked upon his own daughters, rather than the distant, sometimes analysing gaze Rhaegar would give his children. Jon Stark looked at his son not as a man would look upon his heir, like a business transaction, a sack full of possible future opportunities, but as a person, to be loved and respected and heard. And he looked upon his wife, as painfully young as she was, as they both were, with so much love that it made Oberyn long for Ellaria, who had had to stay back in Dorne for the final months of her most recent pregnancy. And when Elia's stepson met Oberyn's daughter sword to spear, he made it look ridiculously easy. Oberyn knew how good Obara was. Obara knew how good she was. And yet it had taken Jon Stark only a few moves to disarm her. "I think I might
subscribe to no tourneys," she told him later. "People whisper that he's magnificent, but they have no idea how deadly he actually is. He could have killed me in a few moments if he had wanted to. Staying out of tourneys might be better for us after all, Father."
Oberyn laughed. "Maybe after this one," he said. "Let people wonder how much you have improved, how much stronger you have grown. For now, go and teach them all their place."
Obara nodded. "Yes, Father," she promised, with a viper's smile upon her face. And with that, she went out and taught a thorough lesson to all those who still looked down upon the Lord of Dragonstone, for his birth, for his reluctance to participate in tourneys, for his youth and the youth of his wife, as though any of that was truly going to matter in the end, when Jon Stark believed in justice and was, truly, the best swordsman Westeros had seen since the Sword of the Morning.