His return to Sunspear felt hollow.

Though returning to Dorne itself had greatly heartened him, having finally managed to escape the pit of debauchery, scheming, and rancidness that was King’s Landing… now that he once again beheld Sunspear in the distance…

Olyvar felt neither joy nor relief in him. Only a deep-seated tiredness.

(Home is where the heart is, his mother had told him once. Home is what you make of it, wherever that might be, no matter where you might go.)

His hear no longer lay in Sunspear. What did it hold for him now, but empty chambers once filled with familial joy, and mountains of burdens waiting to bury him alive. No.

Sunspear had not been home for a long time, now.

Home was the Greenblood, with it’s emerald waters and clear blue skies. Home was amongst the Orphans, singing hymns to a Mother centuries ago lost to them. Home was sailing the great river, Cletus and Albin bickering, Doran laughing at their antics. Home was breaking his fast upon the pole-boats, wedged in between Perros and Frynne.

(Home was so, so far away.)

Olyvar had almost turned away from Sunspear in his household’s approach to it, a large part of him wishing to take another route, following the Greenblood. Rhoyne, what he wouldn’t do to see the Greenblood once again.

But the Prince Within had quashed that notion with a vicious, but necessary, cruelness. If you go, the Prince hissed, you will never return.

Why? Olyvar had asked.

Because you would not wish it so, came the reply.

So, Olyvar had not gone. He had turned his sandsteed away from the home he knew his heart lay, and, as he always did, went onwards to honor the title he held, and the burdens it came with. To Sunspear he rode, with trepidation in his soul and ash on his tongue.

Sunspear, though full of people, was bereft of all he truly loved.

As he oft times found himself doing in recent days, Olyvar retreated into himself, and let the Prince Within do as a Prince should. Smiling his false smile, perfected in the capitol, waving when appropriate, giving out alms when he could… the facade Olyvar built worked well.

Yet, felt so fragile.

But, the people of Dorne knew that not. Instead, they shouted praises and well-wishes as the Sun Ascendant entered the Shadow City, the news of his marriage obviously having spread since it’s announcement. And, of the wedding, the preparations he had ordered had obviously been well underway, his castellan having seen to it in Oly’s absence, and the Martell once again thanked the Rhoyne that the old man had seen fit to continue serving him, as Qoren had served Olyvar’s father.

(He is loyal, a not-so-insignificant part of him whispered. He did not leave. Not like her.)

Unconsciously, his grip on the reigns of his mount tightened.

“My Prince?” came a voice-- Dorans, Olyvar noted-- and blinking, he turned to his foster brother-turned household member. “I-- Forgive me, Doran. I am… overwhelmed. It feels like I left Sunspear only yesterday, yet at the same time, it is as if I have not been here in years.”

The Orphan hummed knowingly, though whether or not he actually knew how Olyvar felt, he knew not. “You need to rest, Olive,” he sighed in Rhoynar. “I know your conversation with your sister weighs upon you heavily--”

A bitter laugh was Oly's reply. “What doesn’t weigh heavily upon me these days?” he murmured back, and fought the sudden urge to hold his hands in his head. Though they had now reached inner walls of the Old Palace, dismounting and ascending further into the keep of his ancestors, Olyvar dared not show an emotion other than solemnness or joy.

(His tears were for his chambers and his chambers alone.)

Doran sighed again, before switching back to the common tongue. “I am serious, Oly. We’re worried. Me and the rest of the household, I mean. I know the others back home by the Greenblood would be too. You’re running yourself ragged.”

The two Dornishmen were walking now, the rest of the Household having re-assimilated back into the servanthood of the Old Palace, and Olyvar’s lips thinned. “I will do what I must,” he whispered, trying not to think of Aerea Bloodraven’s words to him so many sennights ago.

"You do not need to bind yourself. Just, make friends. Ask questions.

“Be you”.

The Orphan in him, the person he had become when he had set out into Dorne all on his own… that was who Olyvar was now. Yet, in that same vein… was the Prince Within not also Olyvar? Orphan and Prince… two halves of one Olyvar, yet irreconcilably separate. He could not be one without discarding the other.

…

And Olyvar was nothing if not a slave to the betterment of his people.

The Prince did not recall the rest of the conversation he’d had with Doran, in the wake of what came next, when his castellan came rushing to him, letters in hand. And, as the boy skimmed through their inked lines, he cursed inwardly.

Olyvar had been gone too long. Too much had happened in his absence.

The Orphan would have to wait.

Dorne needed her Prince.