The Girl who would be Priestess
'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 for the neighboring city of Samyriana. Mel bolted to her feet grabbing only the small Asshaian danger she kept at the foot of her cot. Raids by the neighboring Dothraki in these parts were not uncommon, yet rarely were they in the dead of night. Most of the Khals that dared to attack the traveling nomads were simply on their way to another city to sack and typically wasted little time on the almost redundant traveler villages. This was in part due to the wasted time of stealing goods with little to no value. Which implied that this Khalisar was in truly desperate need, never a good sign.
As Mel dashed from her tent she could already see the destruction that this battle had wrought in a little more than five minutes. She saw the man that baked the daily bread turned into porcupine of arrows. The woman that helped her mother and Mel gather herbs for medicine was being toyed with by two Dothraki riders, her clothes strewn everywhere. And the bodies of children had already scattered the ground like stones. Even more blood riders were already rounding up the ones that remained as slaves in lines of rope. That was when Mel saw the other four other Dothraki dismount and begin to move towards her. "Stay back", she screamed in what little she knew of their language. She held the knife pointed horizontally at the riders daring them to test her. That was when they began to laugh. One of them that looked to be barely sixteen summers approached her cruelly smiling speaking words so fast that she almost couldn't understand. But the point was obvious: she was outmatched and outnumbered. She was only a girl of ten summers against men on average twice her age. 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, interest replacing the bloodlust in their eyes. Suddenly without warning the one behind her the one she hadn't noticed struck clamping a hand around her mouth and wrenching the dagger from her left hand. It was over and yet the Dothraki did not attack her in the same way that they had attacked the others instead on came forward pulled a strand of her scarlet hair between his fingertips and talked to the others surrounding him. Mel caught snatches of the words for "red" and "witch", but the most fearsome word of all was Asshai. At this her eyes widened in fear. Everyone in her village had known to stay away from Asshai and their red god, who's priests and priestesses practiced human sacrifice in the hope of an endless day from their deity. 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 Asshai 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.