"The last person who came out of the city alive was Arya Stark," Tyrion said to the still, silent room. In the midst of the story, Rose had fallen asleep, oblivious to the horrors being spelled out to everyone. Quietly, Willa had taken her and placed her on the bed, where she now slept with Ghost.
Jon stiffened behind Dany at the mention of his beloved sister's name. Why hasn't she come then? Dany wonderered. Surely Arya would have been a much more willing participant on this voyage than Sansa.
Even Sansa, however, was staring at Tyrion with rapt attention. She had nodded briefly at Arya's name. How many times had they heard the story of the siege? It still seemed to hold them all in shocked silence, even after two years. Dany felt sick as Tyrion had described the burning flesh, the screaming mob, and the horrible visions of abject chaos. It was strange to think that during this time, she and Jon had been on their way to Sisterton, completely oblivious as to what else had been going on in the world and wrinkling their noses at the strange pirate nest that smelled of fish and drunkards.
"Did you ever figure out what had happened?" Dany asked.
Tyrion spoke solemnly. "I have my suspicions, but no. There is nobody living who knows what happened. It was nearly a week before we could get anywhere near there again."
The air around King's Landing was thick and putrid. Haze hung over the land and, even in winter, some might have described it as humid. When the fires had finally settled, parts of the armies made their way back to survey the carnage and search for any survivors.
There were none.
Many of the people who went back, after walking even just a little into King's Landing, had to stop and turn around. Almost all of them became ill from the smell and the sight of mangled and dessicated bodies. Men, women, and children indiscriminately lay amongst the dead.
People these days discussed what was worse when remembering the time after the Raze of King's Landing: the land or the bay.
Blackwater Bay was overrun with disfigured bodies in the water. People had leapt from cliffs or dove into the water to save themselves from the burning. Their broken bodies floated or were suspended all through the bay, dotting shipwrecks where ships had crashed into one another in a panic and sank. The drowned souls met with the burned ones, creating a sick garden of destruction over the water.
Unable to do much more than look on at the sight horrified, they decided to leave King's Landing be and not subject the living to see any more of what had happened there.
"Then we had the Great Council," Tyrion continued, "To try and make sense of everything. And to move forward."
Every noble house in the Seven Kingdoms was invited to attend the Great Council at Oldtown. In the history of the Seven Kingdoms, there had only ever been three Great Councils. Two decided succession to the Iron Throne and one decided regents of the throne.
The fourth, as it turned out, did not do either.
Almost every still-existing noble house sent at least one member to the council. Some only had one member left to send.
Deliberations went on for several days as they listened to every claimant to the throne, every idea of what to do now that King's Landing was destroyed, every plan to settle the hundreds of thousands of refugees, and every argument that broke out between houses. The Tyrells were gone - who would rule over Highgarden and the Reach? House Gardner? House Redwyne? House Tarly had been greatly weakened so it certainly wouldn't be them. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater had been promised Highgarden by Tyrion, but none of the Lords of the Reach wanted him to have that seat either.
And who was the successor to the Iron Throne? Was it Gendry Baratheon, the bastard son named by Daenerys Targaryen, who had never been recognized as Queen by everyone? Should it fall to Tyrion Lannister, who was the last surviving Lannister heir? Surely nobody wanted another Lannister on any throne. The Westerlands did not even want the House back at Casterly Rock. And yet who else could claim that they were fit to be King?
The refugees were another story. In the chaos of the destruction of King's Landing, they had fled far and wide across Westeros. Unfortunately, like with everything else it seemed, the Great Council was not able to answer the question of what to do with the refugees either. Each region was told to decide independently what to do. In other words, "Just figure something out."
Then there was the matter of the Seven Kingdoms themselves. Nearly as soon as they started, Sansa Stark and her envoy made it very clear that the North did not want to be a part of anything new.
"The North has suffered too much under the thumb of others," Sansa had said, declaring independence to the approval of her fellow Northerners and the sour-faced looks of others.
Sour or not, however, Dorne and the Iron Islands soon followed suit.
Fractured, the Seven Kingdoms left the Great Council with no clear direction, now reduced to four. Unable to unite with each other, or even unite amongst themselves, the four soon were reduced to the independent kingdoms from the time before Aegon the Conquerer.
Wars upon civil wars broke out. United, the North was relatively free from the conflict that ensued in the other regions, but had become a haven for some escaping the bloodshed. Gendry, for instance, fled there after his first introduction into trying to instate his rule at Storm's End as the last member of House Baratheon ended with several drawn swords, a swinging warhammer, and a lucky escape into the night ("I should have known better," Gendry added to this point).
Dorne had become a hotbed of claimants fighting both each other and the Houses of the Reach, attempting to seize more land. Tyrion did not even dare to go near the Westerlands, and had also been staying in the North. The Riverlands, though still united under Edmure Tully, fought houses of the Westerlands to prevent them from taking land and, at the same time, fought the Reach and the Crownlands for similar reasons. The Vale supported the Riverlands and traded with the North, but had otherwise closed off entirely, still intact with Robin Arryn leading, although their numbers had dwindled just as the North's had. They used their relatively secure borders as defense, knowing that they may not be able to survive a true invasion.
News traveled further as the Seven Kingdoms came apart more and more, bathing the lands in blood and losing any sense of unity to barbaric lust for power. Soon, the Essosi began to look towards the west.
"It began about a year ago," Tyrion said, "At first we just heard bits of smallfolk news that had traveled through the Riverlands and the Vale. Possible, but unlikely. But then we heard more. And now…"
"Are people invading?" Jon asked.
"Worse," Brienne replied quietly, her eyebrows knitting even further together, "They're enslaving."
Apparently it started with Dorne, Tyrion said. Essosi slavers began to come in small numbers and snatch the Dornish away. Exhausted from the constant warfare and unable to unite with other Dornish houses, they could barely defend themselves. Then larger numbers came, and slowly, they made their way up the coast.
Fighting amongst themselves, the independent houses in every region could not come together to fend off the much more rested slavers, and the raids only worsened. Instead of inspiring unity, however, it seemed to divide them more. Unsatisfied with their supply, the slavers had turned their eyes more northward as they grew bolder.
Jon shook his head. "But you aren't fighting with yourselves," he reasoned, "Why is this the North's concern? Youare united. You can defend yourselves!"
Sansa gave one note of a mirthless laugh. "How many people are left in the North and the Vale, Jon? Have you really forgotten?" she asked, "What strength do we have left to defend ourselves? The only reason we have had enough food this winter is because so many of us are dead. The only reason nobody has tried to take our land is because the Riverlands are in the way. We still have a coast, though. House Manderly has suffered the most so far. The people who were not kidnapped from Ramsgate have all left, as have those at Widow's Watch. Even without invasions from our neighbors, we're losing land. And people."
The decision was made a few months ago to begin the removal of every Northerner from the eastern coast, pulling them inwards and away from the slaver's grasp. Although they would lose their resources from the Shivering Sea, Sansa and her council had deemed the people much more important. And they still had the Sunset Sea and the Bay of Ice. Until the slavers came from that direction too.
"It's like we've become prisoners within our own borders," Sansa likened, "We can't fish. We've lost so many of our cities. Our efforts should be about rebuilding and looking towards the North's future. Instead we've spent so much time shrinking where our people are and combing the coast to evacuate everyone. And yet people are still kidnapped. Now that the coasts are free, they're mooring their ships and coming into the land and we can't muster enough force to defend ourselves.
"We declared Northern independence to end the bloodshed, and yet now we have even more. The people the slavers don't want are killed and left for dead. There's barely been a few days without another report of death or signs of enslavement. I - I don't know if we can survive this. Which is why we came..."
She reddened at the statement, looking down at her hands. The room stayed silent. Dany had never seen Sansa as anything but collected and confident. Even at her most brazen (and Dany remembered that quite well), Sansa was nothing if not calm. Now, she looked truly shaken. Her words seemed to invoke similar feelings in the others. Tormund, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire time, looked deeply troubled as well. Though she did not turn around, Dany was sure Jon looked the same.
Would this have happened if we had stayed? Dany wondered if Jon was thinking the same thing. Could they have prevented these horrors and bloodshed if they had not run away? Yes, she thought, but there would have been different horrors to contend with. Disgust reared in her stomach for what could have been and what currently was.
All her life, Dany had grown up around slavery. She had seen, firsthand, the horrors that it brought upon innocent people. There was nothing more loathsome, more awful.
And yet it had always seemed to be a foreign concept in Westeros. She knew that Jorah had once sold people and been sentenced to death for it. That was how he came to her. But, otherwise, when had the Westerosi of the Seven Kingdoms ever experienced slavery? It was horrifying to see it, even though she had seen it almost every day of her life before trying to end it all. What must it be like to see the consequences of slavery for the first time?
Rose crying broke Dany's thoughts and seemed to jolt everyone else back into the present as well. The meltdown that had been averted earlier seemed to be upon them.
Cursing herself for getting so engrossed and allowing Rose to sleep so long, Dany jumped up and skirted between Sansa and Brienne to reach her daughter. "Kesīr, issa tala," Dany murmured, lifting Rose up from the bed, "Muñnykeā iksos kesīr."
"It's late," Jon said to the others with a look out Willa's window, as Dany returned to his side with Rose mildly pacified.
"But - " Sansa started, looking from Tyrion to Dany.
"No," Tyrion agreed, "He's right. We've caught you up. You know why we're here. We can discuss it more tomorrow."
Willa moved towards the door to her home. "Your camp is west of here," she reminded the rising people, "Shouldn't be too hard to find."
As they began to file out, Willa said nothing to Jon and Dany, but fixed Dany with a complex look that somehow matched how she was feeling. Her head was reeling under all the information that had now begun to sink in, and Dany had no idea how she was supposed to walk home tonight and act like nothing had happened. A quick glance at Jon before he led the way out told her that he was feeling the same. His jaw was set most uncomfortably and he was holding his shoulders so stiffly that Dany thought they might snap under the pressure.
Unfortunately, the camp was in the same direction as home, and it was by far one of the most awkward walks Dany had ever been a part of. She had gotten separated from Jon, who was leading, and somehow ended up walking in the back next to Gendry.
"How old is she then?" Gendry asked, nodding to Rose in Dany's arms.
"Her first nameday is in less than two months," Dany replied disconnectedly as she watched Sansa fruitlessly try to speak to Jon. Before the third attempt, Brienne put her hand gently on Sansa's shoulder to stop it.
"The perfect combination," Gendry was saying.
Dany turned to regard him. "Sorry, combination of what?"
"Her parents. She looks just like the two of you," he told her, pausing before adding more, "I'm glad you two were able to leave together. And have her. That you seem...happy."
Gendry smiled awkwardly before looking away and Dany wondered if he thought he had said too much out of place. They were at the foot of the small camp now. A few fires had been lit between the erected tents.
Despite her head still reeling, she returned Gendry's smile. "Thank you," she said gently, "And...I'm sorry, Gendry. For what's happened. With everything, but also with you. I...know what it's like not to have a home."
Although he did not answer, Gendry nodded and gave Dany and Rose a small parting smile. He followed the others into camp, while Dany caught up to Jon to continue on the path towards home.