The Funeral

[Doran's Journal]

The day had finally come. My mother, the Princess of Dorne, had passed away, right after we landed at Sunspear from our long stay at King's Landing. Our mother's body is laid to rest in the sept at Sunspear, we Dornish are not always religious, and often fought with the faith of the seven, but a faith is a faith, and my mother believed in the faith.

There was one problem though, mother had requested that instead of the traditional funeral that the faith of the seven usually do, which was putting the body in the sept for seven days and seven nights for people to go pray for her, then put her body in the crypt, she requested that she wanted her body to be treated like those of the Riverlands, she wanted her body to sail away on the Greenblood, then burned, like those of Orphans of the Greenblood.

When she finally died, a debate broke down between us and the Septon, should we follow her wishes? Or should we be against it? Me and Oberyn obviously said that we should follow her wishes, but the Septon said that it was heresy, Oberyn refuted it by saying that how come the houses of the riverlands can do it? How come the Targaryens can burn their deceased, and he countered that it was the decree of the High Septon years ago, that the Targaryens and those of the Riverlands are exceptions, because they are different, and they have different traditions.

Morian, who was quiet the whole time, finally spoke, that we are descended from the Rhoynar, and should be treated that way as well, after all, they tolerated our 'passion', shouldn't they allow us to do this also? Finally, Morian offered a solution: our mother's body will still be put in the sept for seven days and seven nights, and after that, we will proceed with sending her body to the Greenblood River. The Septon finally relented, and we put our mother's body in the sept.

After seven days and seven nights, we gathered at the riverside of the Greenblood, along with the other lords of Dorne. We have sent a raven to Elia about mother's death, but as I expected, she couldn't come, not only because of her recent marriage, her weak body also prevented her from travelling.

We gathered in front of our mother's body that had been put on a boat, and Morian, who had volunteered on sending her, pushed her body to the river. Once it was far enough, he used his bow, he took an arrow, he lit it with fire, and shot it to mother's boat, burning her body. He looked at the boat, then he gave a signal to the cannoneers at the side of the river. The cannoneers then shot empty rounds, only giving those thoundering booms but without the cannon balls. I had asked what it meant, he said that he thought that it is a sign of respect for one last time, and since then, it is stuck in our tradition that if a lord dies, empty rounds of cannons will be shot.

Since he showed the cannons to the lords of Dorne, naturally, they were curious and afraid, and since I was the acting Prince of Dorne now, I had to deal with it, at times I feel like Morian knows what he did, and he was only trying to make me busier.

With all is said and done, I gathered all the lords of Dorne at Sunspear, talking about cannons and black powder. Before I said anything, I had warned them about the secrecy of the recipe of Black Powder, if words were leaked, then there will be consequences. So I told them about parts of the recipe, I didn't tell them all of it to prevent rebellions, I had strike a deal with house Uller to extract the Sulphur of the Brimstone to make these black powder, and house Yronwood is ready to be the central of cannon manufacturing.

And so the knowledge of cannons and black powder were spread throughout the seven kingdoms, my brother Morian became more and more known, but the recipe of the black powder was still a secret, and almost all the attempted espionage were killed instantly by Morian's cloaked men.