It took Olenna Tyrell longer than she cared to admit to convince Benjen Stark to invite her to Dragonstone. She had to admit, despite herself, that she was curious. For all she had seen in her long life, she had never been to Dragonstone, which from everything she had heard was a mixture of inhospitable cliff land, military encampment and the refuge and fiercely private inner sanctum of a family that had once been at the heart of Westeros. She supposed that it would not be the same now, with the Targaryens gone.
She pushed away any lingering sadness that threatened to rise at the thought. Besides, she was not here to look around; she was here to see the boy her granddaughter was being forced to wed. It went without saying that she would rather not see her daughter wed to a Dornish-Northern bastard, but she would also prefer not to see the title of Warden of the South go to the Tarlys. It was high time she found out what - and who - it was she might have to doom her sweet Margaery to, if no good way out presented itself.
Little Loras, in a feat showing off his Redwyne blood, kept perfectly steady on the deck next to her, looking ahead as the forbidding island emerged from the sea mists. He glanced up at her, golden eyes wide. "Do you think he will want to spar with me?" he asked, and Olenna felt a pang of sadness. Out of everyone, Loras was the one who suffered the most from Garlan's enforced exile. He was a lonely boy, in his way. He did not lack for companionship, and he and Margaery were beautifully close, but everyone could tell he missed his brother.
"I am sure he will, sweetling," she said. "He is a name day younger than you, but he has been trained by Arthur Dayne. I am sure you will have some good matches." She hoped they would get along. Not necessarily because they might one day be goodbrothers. Time would still show that. No, children showed different things, different sides of themselves, to other children, things they would never reveal to adults. While Olenna assessed the situation, Loras would be her best looking glass when it came to Jon Stark. Hopefully he would take to her Loras. And she did not see why not. The boy, as far as she knew, had been without the companionship of other children since he left the North more than a year ago.
A boy surrounded by adults would be even lonelier than Loras, especially given the fact that he had been raised alongside a half-brother who was only a few moons his senior. If that. No matter what questions she had asked, she had not been able to ascertain which brother was older; they were simply too close in age. It might be that only Eddard Stark and Arthur Dayne truly knew. The mystery was a problem, but Jon Stark was still high in the line of succession to the title of Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell. And if the king's plans were carried out, Jon Stark would have heirs years before Robb Stark did. Those, at least, were advantages.
She breathed in deep of the sea air, forced her mind into stillness for a moment. She would wait, and see the other players. She would drew her conclusions from there.