The Girl who would be Priestess
HBO and George R. R. Martin own Game of Thrones.
'The night is dark and full of terrors." -Melisandre
Prologue:
162 A.C
The sound of horses' hooves split the quiet of the encampment into chaos. Mel woke from her slumber to the screams of her mother telling her to get out of the tent and to run from the tent. Mel bolted to her feet, half falling, half running to get out into the night air. She stopped only a moment grabbing the small Asshai'i danger she kept at the foot of her straw stuffed. Raids by the neighboring Dothraki in these parts were not altogether uncommon, yet rarely were they in the dead of night such as this: a night with a red moon. Most of the Khals that dared to attack the traveling nomads at all were simply on their way to one of the Free Cities, Volantis perhaps or even Lys, hoping to sack or plunder typically wasting little time on the almost penniless traveler villages that sprung up along the way. This was in part due to the wasted time of stealing goods with little to no value. Mel could remember clearly being in Asshai as a child, running in the shadows from the shadows. Sometimes Mel almost thought they could actually move like a man could. Whatever the true reason for this Khal's raid on a poor traveler village it signaled only one thing: enslavement.
As Mel dashed from her tent she could already see the destruction that this battle had wrought in little more than five minutes. She saw the man that baked the daily bread in the hot coals of fire poked through with arrows. The woman that helped Mel's mother gather herbs for medicine, when Mel had caught the fever was being toyed with by two Dothraki riders, her clothes strewn everywhere, screaming. And the children being gathered into lines in the haze of the scarlet moonlight. Even as Mel watched this more blood riders were already rounding up the ones that remained as slaves in lines of rope. That was when Mel saw four Dothraki screamers dismount and begin to move towards her. "Stay back", she screamed in what little she knew of their language. The tongue of the Dothraki was nothing like the language of Asshai, nor even the various dialects of High Valyrian spoken by the rest of the continent of Essos. It was guttural and harsh, much like the Dothraki warriors themselves. She held the knife pointed horizontally at the riders daring them to test her. The youngest among them, looking only a few years older than Mel herself gave a hoot of laughter that made Mel blush with shame. The other Dothraki stopped to stare in amazement. Was it the sight of a young girl holding a knife in the blood red moonlight that did it? No she thought the were weary of her. One of the eldest of the four approached her slightly more careful, alternating world in Valyrian mixed with his own language. But the point was obvious: she was outmatched and outnumbered. She was only a girl against men nearly triple her size. Seeing the situation for what it was she placed the edge of the knife at the dip between her right shoulder. The tip pricked her skin sending a thin trail of crimson blood down into her grey shift. At this the Dothraki stopped and stared at her queerly, even more interest replacing what remained of the bloodlust left in their eyes. Suddenly without warning a new Dothraki grabbed her around the waist with one arm while behind wrenching the dagger from her left hand with his remaing one. It was over and yet the Dothraki did not attack her in the same way that they had attacked the others. Instead the Dothraki, came forward pulling a strand of her scarlet hair between their fingers and talking amongst themselves . Mel caught snatches of the words for "red" and "witch", but the most fearsome word of all was the Rasiest to recognize: Volantis. It was well known even amongst the nomads of the plains that the priestesses and priests of Volantis practiced rituals of arcane power in honor of their Red God R'hllor. As soon as she heard this her eyes widened in fear. Everyone in her village had known to stay away from Volantis unless they were secure in their money and certain of their safety. The blind man that traveled with the camp told stories of human sacrifice performed by the priests in the hope of an endless day from their deity. Of priestesses that laid with strangers claiming to be descended from the old kings of Ghis to create creatures of shadow and terror. They had always stayed clear of that place hoping never to see it. Mel knew what they intended to do with the slaves now. They would head for Volantis and sell the children as slaves to the red priests for sacrifices in their dark rituals. Rounding her up in line with the others they placed her in the back, leaving her plenty of room to watch the place she had lived parish in the flames behind her. In the flames Mel thought she saw a face, but on second glance it was nothing. After all fire can only eat away at things till there is nothing left but ash.