[CENTER][sup][h1][img]https://i.ibb.co/m14KtcY/450px-Rene-Aigner-Dornish-Marches.webp[/img]
[b][color=khaki]T H E   M A R C H E S[/color][/b][/h1][/sup]
[/CENTER]

[color=khaki][i][h3]Some time ago...[/h3][/i][/color]
It was three, maybe five days, as the raven flies true to get a letter from Starfall to Sunspear. If the raven flew true and if they had a raven to spare on such a triviality. 

It was not a triviality yet Lady Ysabel needed to treat it as such. That level of subterfuge pervaded her every day since the realm broke apart and fought old and new grievances against one another. It was a performance she knew well, but one that she sometimes forgot was just meant to be performance. Ser Russell was a good husband, a good father, but ancient animosities could not be forgotten even when two shared a marriage bed. She knew for some time that he acted behind her back, that he aided his family in their support of the so-called Blackfyre king, the pretender. They did so openly and Russell Yronwood was not a man who forgot his ancient blood. And so, as she had done for some time now, she readied her miscellaneous pleasantries and requests, her regular correspondence with her beloved brother at Sunspear, and buried in those uninteresting, sundry words was the notice of what her men had found. 

The cache of coins and metal had not entirely been a surprise to the Lady of Starfall, but finding it first had been. It was a dangerous game they played, the minted coins with the Pretender's visage, young and aquiline, ethereal in the way only the one-time dragon lords were meant to be. Not at all like their young heir, Prince Baelor who had been marred by Dornish blood, and not like their steady king, who could never be mistaken for the Warrior. If only the Seven had seen fit to give this burden to another. She was tired in a way that sleep would never resolve, on edge so that her hands jittered whenever she had a moment to stand still and think. 

She wrote to her brother, hid the urgent request beneath light tones and sisterly warmth, bid that he intercede with Prince Maron. Wrapped in boring details so prying eyes would glaze over, she suggested that those who moved the false dragon's coin could be found in the Boneway passages. Her youngest sister, Dyanna, had sent troubling reports of increased raids in the marches and Ysabel was more than certain these were connected events. Whether it was Yronwood directly or another Dornish house eager for the opportunity to bleed their northern neighbors, a show of force from their liege-lord might be enough to force them back to the shadows. Or so she hoped. 

She sent the letters off to reach Sunspear nearly a fortnight after discovering the cache. It was a delay, but it had been necessary. Jami's response had been short and terse, carefully worded as her own had been. Outriders arrived not long after, without banners. It was a telling message to her, Ysabel had been in one of the upper galleries when she saw the desert's dust rising up on the horizon. The men told her that their prince had ridden as well, though along a different path than they. Though he was not there, he had come in strength and had ridden himself. No matter how serious she had known it to be before, her heart had dropped anyways at seeing a portion of the prince's response.  

Even had she not been growing heavier with child, she would not have ridden with them, no matter that her Prince would do so. Her steady hand was required in Starfall, to maintain the truest loyalist hold this half of Dorne. So it was her other brother, Ryon, who was set to accompany the men on their way. Russell had little choice too but to accompany the men as well, his face noticeably absent of any disdain or pleasure at the task. He took it all in stride if not in exuberance, Lady Ysabel giving him a sweet kiss upon his cheek and bidding him to return before their babe arrived. She meant it, no matter how easy it would be to wish otherwise. Damn the wars and the men who started them. 

The column had left seemingly as quickly as they arrived. Horses and men had enjoyed a brief respite in the oasis Starfall provided before they made their way back to the dry dirt and rocks. Ryon had looked back once, a mailed fist raised in parting. Russell had not and she would not hold it against him. 

[sup][sup][hr][hr][/sup][/sup]

[color=khaki][i][h3]The Present...[/h3][/i][/color]
North and east, past the ancient roadways through the Red Mountains and into the contested lands where Dorne met the Reach and the Stormlands; a border that had never quite decided who it belonged to. Reports had been arriving and departing for months. Villages, outposts, farms, septs - it did not matter, men came and took what they could carry then burned the rest. Men, women, children were slain if they did not flee in time and those that did returned with slim hopes that they could rebuild in time and that they would be spared from the next roving band of brigands. 

Though the smallfolk were unlike to see it as thus, this was deliberate and patient, seemingly random but a determined bleeding against those who made the marches their home. Whoever directed it understood that the most effective provocations were those that had deniability and fell short of demanding an answer in kind. They danced at the edges, pushing and shoving, prodding and poking, until the men they played their games with took action of their own, none the wiser to whom had triggered them to action. 

The Reach lords whose land bore the weight of it had not been silent, ravens went to those with reason to listen, and to those who had the means to care. A man, even a lord, could only absorb this kind of damage for so long before absorbing it meant condoning it. Enough of them swore themselves to the Black Dragon and those who didn't readied themselves to defend. Prince Baelor's presence gave them the courage to go on the offensive. 

Closer to all of it than few would find comfortable was Summerhall. Prince Maekar's wife waited there, her household including two young royal sons. Dyanna Dayne was not an unprepared woman, nor a stupid one. Her presence was a symbol and one that drew attention in these times. She wielded that in hopes it would prevent it being wielded against her. She had written to her sister, to lords of the reach and the stormlands. The pince's wife watched the roads and fields for signs of what she felt in her gut would come next. 

The Martell column moved north through the Boneway, the dead pretender's coins in their baggage train. They had not yet found answers to their questions, but the men they pursued seemed ever ahead of them or ever scattered around them. Perhaps someone would eventually decide that the game of hide-and-seek had become to dull, that making their presence known could nudge the war in their favor. 

In the marches, it is always a matter of who moves first. And so far, Daemon Blackfyre seemed the master of it.