WINKTOBER DAY 28: Formal Wear (Oberyn Martell)
Even though there are more still a few more coming, this is the last prompt I actually finished. I sat down and started to write a little drabble about Oberyn being worn down by the formalities of a royal function, how the reader tries to entertain him, how he seems to come around and flirt with her. But it felt too easy to win him that way and it didn’t make me feel anything. I wanted to write something that wasn’t just another little story, but maybe a musing on then man himself in a vulnerable moment, when he was feeling less than the gregarious prince we all know and love, just looking for some small piece of beauty to ground him in the moment. It got rather flowery and full of commas. When I proof, I tend to read out loud, and it sounded closer to a poem to me, so I have decided to lean outside of the box a little on this one and broke the six sentences up into separate thoughts. It’s not a poem, it’s just…something quietly defiant. It’s my fic. My rules. I do what I want. It made me feel things, so this is where it stays.
He is a master of poisons, you’ve heard it said a scholar a warrior a monster a lover– and tonight he moves through the banquet like none of these things or all of them at once as if he doesn’t care which one takes the lead.
There’s something languid and heavy about him his glowing robes lay over him like molten gold poured over a monolith but they defy the air keeping close to his body as if by a magnet’s pull– and when he meets your curious eyes in the candlelight you recognize this weight in him.
He’s bored.
It’s a surprise when he finds you in the water gardens where you’ve gone to escape the noise and odors of the feast to kick off your shoes and let your feet be soothed by the heat of the Dornish sun still lingering in the pink marble even while the stars take up residence in the darkened pools.
“My prince–” you gasp as he pulls you down with him by a fountain’s edge with a steady grip on your arm and the light of the far off revelry illuminates his aching cringe catches on his ring as he waves off your formality sick to death tonight of being charmed and seduced by liars and fools by folk who are born so high on a pedestal that they are as transparent as the clouds their motives spelled out plainly within them and none of them simply pausing to enjoy what is pleasant and juicy and rich about this robust and beautiful life none of them so free from the scare of scandal that they would wander out to the gardens to warm their weary feet to chase whatever pleasure the gods can make for a woman such as you…
So while you watch in flustered awe as the Prince of Dorne the Red Viper the lusty, vengeful second son of the kingdom kneels beside you and gently begins to wash and cool your feet in the star flecked waters cradling your heel firmly in one large palm you know that this sweetness is not only for your benefit but because one man made of flesh and blood who lives in riches but whose cravings are deceptively simple wants nothing to do with the nobilities of the land who claw for his notice but seeks only to touch and care for a pretty girl’s feet to dry them on his golden robe to be present and attentive to share a moment of tactile beauty with a quiet soul just to be a kindness wrapped in silk and silent smiles under the pale eye of the night.
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