A/N: Chap 6 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks for eading!
Chapter Seven: The High Seas
The moment Taylor got the cage of dragons off her back, she felt her stomach drop. One of the dragons had an arrow through it. Somehow, the creature still lived, making piteous little sounds. The other two dragons nudged the injured one with their heads in a display of almost human pathos.
"Help me get the kit off," she said. Her voice emerged as a croak.
Barristan motioned for Groleo, and the two men actually struggled with the weight. "What do you have in here?" the captain said.
"The souls of my enemies," Taylor said.
"More like gold, from the sound of it," Barristan noted dryly.
"For these people, I think it's all the same." Once free of the crushingly heavy backpack, she was able to undo the latches at the top of the cage and gently lift the wounded dragon out. The injured creature's scales were black, with red scales along its snout and wings. Though small, Taylor had to admit the dragon was an exquisite creature. It didn't just blaze in thermal scopes, but in the Force itself.
Mormont arrived on deck moments later, accompanied by the still unmasked Quaithe. "No!" he hissed. "Drogon!"
Frowning, Taylor stared up from her kneeling position. "Drogon? Really?"
"For Khal Drogo, Denaerys' husband," Mormont explained earnestly.
"I'm going to honor your Khaleesi's memory by saving her dragon," Taylor proclaimed. "And I'm going to honor my own sanity by not calling it Drogon. That's a terrible name. Instead, we'll call this one Temeraire. Now, let's get these little guys inside so I can heal them."
It sounded good in theory, until her knees buckled and she almost dropped the wounded dragon. Barristan caught her almost immediately. "Are you wounded?"
"Shit." With a thought, she sensed the sheer amount of damage her knees had taken. Her back was little better. "I got greedy and stupid and pushed my knees and back too hard," Taylor admitted. "I can heal them, but for now...ow."
Quaithe came to Taylor's other side, while Mormont gathered the dragons and Groleo grunted at the effort of lifting the gold.
Barristan didn't lead her to the cabin she slept in before. Instead, he led her to the VIP cabin where Daenerys was supposed to stay. Its bed looked somewhat larger, and it had enough room that they could actually stand and move around. Groleo huffed with the effort of putting the pack down. Mormont placed the cage on a little table that folded up on a hinge cleverly built into the wall. As soon as Taylor sat with a moan, Quaithe whispered a harsh word in a language that made Taylor's head hurt. Instantly, the three hanging lanterns in the room blazed to life accompanied by a surge of Force energy.
Huh.
Fighting back a moan from the pain of her stressed back and knees, Taylor placed the unmoving, mortally wounded dragon on the table. The creature had gone insensate, but she could still feel it clinging to life.
"Can you save it?" Jorah asked.
In answer, Taylor pinched the end of the arrow shaft near the little beast's stomach scales to stabilize it, and with a surge of Force snapped the bobkin off. The dragon would be dead if the Qartheen had used barbed points on their arrows instead of smooth, sharp metal points meant for punching through armor.
She did the same on the back, removing the fletching until only a few inches of the shaft remained. "Okay, little guy," she whispered. She cupped her hands around the dragon's body. "Quaithe, remove the shaft."
The Shadowbinder did so, gently pulling at the remaining arrow. The moment she did, Taylor felt Temeraire's life begin to fade quickly. Closing her eyes, she flooded the hatchling with Force energy. She lost herself in the ebb and flow of the dragon's life. Its own power felt alien to Taylor's, borne as much by dark side energy as the light. If Taylor were Jedi, she would have failed.
She was not. Neither Jedi, nor Sith, Taylor was Bendu. "I am the line between the darkness and the light," she whispered. "And I command you to live."
Not immediately; not like a switch going off. But bit by bit, she could feel the dragon's magic changing its nature to accept her energy. Like a bitter porridge becoming sweeter with honey, the dark energy that gave rise to these creatures grew lighter until it was able to accept the full flow of the Force.
"You're a tough little guy, aren't you?" Taylor sighed when Temeraire lifted his head and blinked at her. As she watched, the deep, blood red of the reptilian's gaze lightened to a sharp, spiky gold color.
"By the Gods," Mormont whispered.
Taylor, though, couldn't help but feel entranced not only by what she saw, but what she felt. The creature's force presence hovered in the back of her mind, almost like a Force bond.
Not almost.
"The little guys hungry. They all are. He'll want fish, charred if possible."
"He's seemed to prefer horse in the past," Mormont noted.
Taylor and her dragon both turned and glared at the man, so much so he backed up a step in alarm. "He hates horsemeat. There just wasn't anything else for him to eat. He likes fish. Later he'll probably move on to something bigger, like sheep, or politicians."
Taylor turned to the wicker gate, and with a wave of her hand undid the rest of the bindings. The two other dragons quickly crawled out with angry flaps of their wings. They were too small and weak to fly yet, but they could move about on the ground as fast as angry cats. They leaped onto the table now, writhing in a circle around their newly healed sibling.
She picked the green and bronzed dragon up. It nipped at her fingers with sharp little teeth. Though hungry and cold, the dragon was mostly unharmed. She bathed it in Force energy anyway. Unlike Temeraire, this one's energy didn't seem quite as dark and quickly accepted the flow of power.
"You'll be Saphira," Taylor decided. The newly named dragon barked its pleasure with the naming, and lifted both its wings to allow Taylor to gently scratch at its scales. The small dragon squawked as a startled, ticklish feeling echoed in its Force presence.
She turned to the last-a white and gold creature. This one came to her without hesitation, its squeal sounding oddly joyous. "Oh, I'd love to call you Toothless, but no one would get it the reference," Taylor told the happy little dragon. "Instead, I'll call you Elliott."
Elliott celebrated by lifting his wings like Saphira and staring intently at Taylor until she tickled him right under the joint. The small dragon waved its head and mewled in delight. Around the table, the two knights and the Shadowbinder stared incredulously.
"I've never seen the like," Mormont finally said.
"You have seen many dragons, Jorah the Andel?" Quathe asked with a wry smile.
With the healing and, more importantly, the renaming done, Taylor finally let the emotional and physical exhaustion of the day settle about her shoulders. "Barristan, are there any decisions that need to be made right now?"
Mormont opened his mouth, but Barristan beat him to it. "Right now? No. We'll have the ship's cook bring in food for you and your dragons. By your leave, I'll take an accounting of your spoils as well."
Dragging tired eyes up to the old man, she spared a genuine smile. "Thank you."
"What of the Shadowbinder?" Ser Barristan asked.
"She'd better stay in here with me for now."
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
Rising up to the shallow edges of her healing trance, Taylor sensed an argument raging across a narrow hall. In the Force, she saw Mormont and Barristan in the elder knight's cramped quarters. Ser Jorah wore the same clothing he had when they pulled him off the cross, and still looked worn and broken from the harrowing experience.
"This witch is no queen! Daenerys was the only surviving child of King Aerys! She was the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. If Daenerys were to make a claim for the throne, especially right now, the Targaryen loyalists would back her."
"Then you should not have let her die, you fool!"
Taylor had not seen Ser Barristan so quick to lash out before, but he stood livid and shaking. "I gave up my home, my land and my name to serve her, only to find her dead because, to no one's surprise. the rulers of Qarth didn't want a foreign queen and her Dothraki savages murdering and stealing from one of their own! Gods, man, that would be like murdering and robbing the Tyrells and not expecting the other noble houses to do a thing about it. You should have counseled her to just leave! Take the dragons and flee the city! Failing that...failing that, man, you should have died defending your queen."
Mormont collapsed to the edge of the lower bunk, his face in his hands. "I tried, Ser Barristan. I drew my blade and cut half a dozen men down. That...Silk King and his follows wanted me alive. They hung me there and kept me alive so I could watch her fade." The man's voice cracked. "I begged them to let me die, and they laughed at me."
For his part, Ser Barristan sat on his travel chest. The cabin was so small that, with the men leaning forward, they sat only two feet apart. "I begged for death as well, when I found my Prince and my King dead," the old man admitted. "I felt shame when I accepted Robert's pardon. Shame that I lived when I, too, should have died. And once more, I survive a Targaryen I swore to protect."
"So why this...this witch, Ser Barristan? She is...at the very least, she is foreign-born. She has no army, nor family name. She's not of our faith nor of our culture. Why pledge yourself to her?"
"I haven't pledged myself yet," Barristan said. "Though I plan too soon enough. But why, you ask? There on the street, before Daenerys' body. Did you hear what was said?"
"No. I was too far away and lost in my pain."
Barristan stood again, swaying in time with the ever-present rocking of the ship. "When Aerys was young, he was beloved among the kingdoms because he knew how to talk to people. That's where King Robert failed so badly, and where Aerys himself floundered in his later madness."
The old man smiled. "You should have heard her, Ser Jorah. Masked and robed like an Asshai witch, she still had that snake eating out of her hand with just a few words. More than that...she saved me in that hour. I was prepared to pull my sword and die killing those who would defile my queen. She stopped me with a touch and a look, and I obeyed because I knew she was right.
"Did you not see the forces that followed her when she left the city? I tell you I could scarce lift that pack of hers that she carried across the city, with dragons, while fighting off an army! She fought Warlocks and city guards alike and returned to us unharmed."
"But she's a witch!" Jorah asked.
"Aye, mayhap." The man sat back down on his chest. "Though she had no cause, when I drank myself into a stupor, the next morning she placed her hand to my head and lifted the sins of my evening from me. Not to curry favor, mind you, but because it was in her nature to do so."
"That just proves she's a witch, Ser Barristan."
"You're missing my point, Mormont. Think of what I just told you. She talked her enemy into giving us what we wanted. She single-handedly defeated an entire city and escaped with their most prized treasures. And she is kind for the sake of kindness alone. Tell me, man, who is better suited to sit upon the Iron Throne? Who best could heal the wounds the Seven Kingdoms suffer? Our land is bleeding. And none of the pretenders are fit to sit on that throne."
"But all of them have a far better chance to do so, Ser Barristan."
"Perhaps. But for me? I journeyed the width of the world to bend the knee to a slip of a girl sight-unseen. A girl with no army, nor fortune. Just three dragons, a name and a prayer. We've lost the name, perhaps, but it seems the prayer has been answered. I shall bend my knee to her, if she'll have me."
"And me?"
"You must do what you feel is right. If you do not serve, you may sail with us to Pentos and then seek passage from there."
Taylor blinked the Force vision from her eyes. Unlike the other cabins, the VIP room didn't have bunks. Which meant that Quaithe had slept on the wood planks of the floor with just blankets. When Taylor sat up, pleased to find no planks to hit her head on, she saw the other woman with her back to the cabin wall watching her intently. She'd stripped off the odd dress decorated in woven hexagons, revealing a thin silken shift.
The three small dragons nestled at the foot of her bed stirred, with three small heads lifting to blink lazily at her.
"You do not need a flame or candle to see," Quaithe said. Somehow she sensed Taylor's vision.
"No, I don't."
For her part, Taylor wore the linen undergown from her Shadow Master robes. She stretched stiff, newly healed muscles and tendons, and tested her knees. She'd severely sprained both, bursting at least one bursa sack. That was not even touching the damage to her spine. The Force had sustained her, if just barely, but there was no question she vastly overdid it the night before. Even with a healing trance, she felt sore and tired.
A brief look found the bundle of her clothes from the Qartheen seamstress on the floor by her bed. Rather than the heavy robes and dresses, she removed the cotton breeches that were common among the female archers that often sailed with their men from the Summer Islands. A leather vest saw her dressed enough.
Though she barely even noticed the rocking of the ship any more, she did notice the full night pail in its little bench to keep it from spilling. Maybe if I ignore it it'll go away.
A glance down at the three dragons had all of them scrambling up and around her clothing. Temeraire found a perch on her right shoulder, Saphira on her head, and little Elliot just wanted to be cuddled.
"I'm going to go see what the boys are doing. Be good."
Quaithe didn't quite know how to take that, so remained sitting as Taylor stepped out of the cabin into the narrow hall and made her way up onto the deck.
She found Ser Barristan sitting on his favorite barrel in the sheltered spot just under the aft castle. He had the same weathered, heavily read book on his lap that he had on their way toward Qarth, though like normal he wasn't reading. Instead, he sat and stared out across the rolling blue waves. To the south, Taylor saw endless ocean. To the north, she caught just the faintest hint of the coast.
He turned and smiled as she came and sat on a smaller bucket of tar by his side. Elliot nudged her until she scratched at his chin, while Temeraire hissed to make sure Barristan knew that Taylor was taken. Saphira spread her wings to get as much of the morning sun as she could.
"Did you sleep well?" She asked him.
"To my surprise, I did." He reached into a fold of his robe and cautiously held out a piece of charred cod. Temeraire sniffed it, gave a pleased purr, and snatched it from his fingers. Of course, this caught the other two's attention. Barristan came prepared and gave each a piece as well. "I'd prefer they view me as a source of food now, so they don't see me as food in the future."
Taylor couldn't help but laugh. "Smart. Don't worry about it, though. I've built bonds with the three of them. I won't be able to control them, but I definitely should be able to communicate and guide them. l'll insist on a no-human diet."
"That would be much appreciated." He watched the dragons with an open expression of wonder. "The last dragons of Westeros died a century before. The last one barely reached the size of a dog. It was as if magic went out of the world when they died."
"Not anymore," Taylor said. "The problem is that the magic of this world is dark."
"The gods are often cruel and uncaring," Barristan said, as if agreeing.
Perhaps, in his own way, he was. "So, what next?"
"A question I've been pondering this morning," the old man admitted. "Captain Groleo sails back to Pentos. With Daenerys' death, his commission is done and he returns to his employer."
Simple, straightforward truth that had nothing to do with what Taylor sensed he and Mormont speaking of in their cabin earlier that morning. The man himself seemed to sense that his answer was only a tactic to delay a harder truth, he just didn't seem to care. Instead, he said, "In all our time traveling, I've never asked your age."
"I'm...nine and ten, as you'd say it," Taylor said.
"Nine and ten. Only a year older than I when I fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings." Barristan stared intently at her. "Three years older than Elia Martell was when she married Prince Rhaegar. She was a beautiful girl, but small and frail. Especially for a Dornishwoman. But she adored Rhaegar, and was so very proud to deliver both a son and daughter to him."
"Rhaegar left her."
"Aye. Robert believed Rhaegar abducted Lyanna Stark. I've often wondered, though. The Stark girl looked a great deal like Elia, but without any of the sickness. She was strong and outspoken, and everything Elia tried to be but couldn't because of her health. But the Stark girl was just as young and foolish as Rhaegar was overly romantic."
His eyes drifted from her face as memory took him. "I was not in the Red Keep when Gregor Clegane raped and murdered Princess Elia and killed her children. But while I was in Pentos, the merchant, Mopatis, told me a remarkable tale. He told me that Prince Aemon, Elia's son, had somehow survived that day. That Varys, the Master of Whispers in the Red Keep, had smuggled the prince out of King's Landing and bought a boy from the city slums to stand in his stead. It was this other boy Clegane murdered, not Aemon."
"Sounds...like a story they made up," Taylor said. She tried not to be horrified at the idea of any child being murdered, but somehow a substitute child dying just seemed...worse.
"Perhaps so. I asked Mopatis of the boy's disposition, only to be told that a fever took him and his keeper when the boy was five. The future of the dynasty lost because of a fever. Odd that he'd tell me the story, then confess it was all for naught."
Shaking himself out of his dark memories, he looked back at Taylor, studying her like a father might his daughter. "With hair such as yours, you could almost be Dornish. But your pale skin and eye color could be Andal, First Man or even Valyrian. Rhaenys, Elia's daughter, took after her mother with dark hair and eyes, and an tone of ripened ollives to her skin as was the way with many of the Dornish. But who's to say what she might look like today?"
A name, dragons and a prayer. "Do I look Dornish?"
"Not so much. It would take some creative liberties to make it work," the old man admitted. "But claiming the name while you carry three dragons about your shoulders would give you a legitimacy that your power alone would not provide."
Both of them looked up to see Quaithe join them. The woman was once again in her hexagonal dress, though she continued to go absent her mask. She sat graciously on the deck before them.
"Please forgive my eavesdropping. If I may, perhaps if the nobles of your kingdom learned that your princess was taken to study magic in Asshai-Beyond-the-Shadow and was changed by ancient Valyrian sorcery, it might explain the color of her eyes and her great height. After all, they have changed color just since she woke this morning"
"What?" Taylor looked from Quaithe to Barristan.
"It's true," Barristan said. "A most striking effect. Like a golden starburst in a field of black."
Taylor had no mirror to study herself in. Instead, she turned back to Quaithe. The woman somehow understood what Taylor wanted and merely nodded her ascent. With a surge of Force power, Taylor slipped into her mind just long enough to stare at herself through the woman's eyes.
Alien eyes stared back, black with a four-pointed golden star around her pupil. "Wow. That Force-bond with the dragons must have...wow."
Quaithe smiled. "It is said in Asshai that the first dragon lords of Valyria learned their sorcery from Shadow Masters. Those first lords bonded with their dragons in a way their descendants never did. It would, I think, fit the mythos you seek if you were to declare yourself a dragon lord of old, as well as a Targaryen."
Barristan stared at the woman with pursed lips. "You seem quick to offer counsel. Were you as quick to counsel Daenerys?"
The woman bowed her head. "Barristan the Andel, I told Jorah where he and his queen might find her dragons. I knew from the flames. I did not counsel them to kill and rob one of the Thirteen. Not even a fool would counsel such a thing. The rich will always protect their own from outsiders. The young queen thought she was in the right, but did not realize right and wrong played no part of the politics of the city. The Thirteen had her killed so that none of the others in the city would ever think to steal from one of their number again. Nothing more."
"Then why did Mormont blame you?" Barristan asked.
Taylor, though, understood. "He wasn't ready to accept the blame himself. Not yet."
Quaithe bowed her head. "Just so."
"So, just to be clear," Taylor said to the two of them. "You're proposing that I impersonate the dead daughter of the last Targaryen king in order to conquer Westeros, even though I have no army or legal claim. Why?"
"The Seven Kingdoms are being torn apart by civil war," Barristan said. "Five kings are vying for the throne, and the smallfolk suffer all over the kingdoms because of it. I don't know the Wolf from the north, Lord Stark's boy. But I know the other claimants, and none are worthy. Of them all, Stannis Baratheon would be the lesser evil, and yet he has the smallest hope."
"And the Long Night comes, and will kill all humans on this world if you do not," Quaithe added.
Barristan nodded, blinked, then stared at her. "What did you say?"
"It was not Daenrys who brought magic back into the world, Barristan the Andel," the Shadowbinder said. "Magic returned because the Long Night comes. The coming winter will be the worst in thousands of years. The demons will walk the earth again, and their goal as always will be the end of humans on this world. This will happen within my lifetime. Likely within the next ten years. It is known by any who has the eye to see."
"I believe you," Taylor said into the intervening silence. "I can sense the darkness like a shroud over this world." Glancing up to the stunned knight, she asked, "How many soldiers can the strongest faction of Westeros field?"
"Fifty to a hundred thousand at most," Barristan said.
"Which is fifty to a hundred thousand more men than we have," Taylor noted. "For the record, Barristan, I'm a good fighter, but not quite that good. I don't have the funds to hire mercenaries. So where are we going to get men?"
"If she had lived, the fallen queen would have travelled to Astapor to obtain the Unsullied," Quaithe said.
Taylor regarded Quaithe intently. "You keep saying things like that. If you saw the future play out so well, why couldn't you save her?"
Quaithe bowed her head. "The Warlocks were more powerful than I. They obscured my vision just enough so I could not see what they intended until after the dragons were abducted. Likewise, they obscured my vision of what would happen after."
Taylor couldn't help but shudder in memory of the power of their illusions, and those blasting turtles of theirs. "Right. That I believe. So what are Unsullied?"
"Eunuch slave soldiers," Barristan said with contempt. "Slavery is outlawed in Westeros. Arriving with an army of slave soldiers would not aid our cause."
"It would aid our cause more than arriving in Westeros without soldiers. Besides, do you think I'd keep men as slaves? Quaithe, I don't suppose you saw how Daenerys would obtain these soldiers?"
"I saw only blood and fire, Aeksiae."
Her meaning with the strange title was so clear it rang in Taylor's mind: Goddess. "That's not pretentious at all," Taylor noted dryly.
Quaithe bowed her head again, this time with her lips quirked at the corners. "When dealing with the pretentious, being pretentious is the only way to be taken seriously. It is the feminine of Lord. And unlike most, the title fits. You are Azor Ahai reborn."
Do I want to do this?
The thought rang in her mind. Barristan sought to use her for his own goals, as did Quaithe. The fact that their goals were mostly altruistic didn't change the fact that they were asking her to lie and throw her hat into a political contest that would take years. But that said-if she won, she could command the resources she needed to get home. If she lost, she would die. All of these people would die. That's what happened in dynastic disputes, she was sure.
"Ser Barristan, you have to understand I'm not part of your Seven Kingdoms. I have ideas and knowledge no man of this world has ever had. More than that, I am Bendu. I am an avatar of the living Force-the energy and magic that surrounds all living things. That means that I have insights to the future, and can do things beyond that of normal men. I won't rule like any kings or queens from the past. I couldn't even if I wanted to."
The old knight regarded her calmly. "Lass, it seems you could scarcely do worse than your predecessors. More likely, you'll do vastly better. Just in these past two weeks I've come to know you, I believe in you."
"If you want me as your queen, I will be your queen. I'll listen to counsel, but at the end of the day I must be allowed to make the decisions."
Rather than be offended, that seemed to actually please the man. "As it must and should be, Your grace."
"So, do I need to go mindbend the captain to go to Astapor?"
"I shall see to it, your grace."
He had a lively bounce in his step when he stood and walked up the castle. Taylor turned to study the Shadowbinder. "You know the only reason I'm going along with this is so I'll never have to empty chamber pots again."
The woman stared a moment, wide-eyed, before laughing. She bit the laugh back, but the humor lingered. "It is a righteous queen who understands the nature of her rule, Aeksiae."
"And what do you get out of all this, Quaithe?"
Her smile turned wistful. "The survival of our kind. And Jorah the Andal, of course."
"He hit you, remember?"
"Oh yes. And because he is a man of deep conscience, I shall use that one blow to rule his soul until he dies. He shall give me marvelous, beautiful children."
Different culture! Different culture! "Right. So, if we're going to do this, I have a lot to learn about being a queen."
"It is good, then, that we have among our number one who has stood beside so many kings."