A.N.: I refuse to believe House Tyrell became extinct after Cersei blew up the Sept, with the death of Margaery and Loras. Firstly they wrote out their two siblings; and Olenna had more than one child. So, survivors. Trainees for Olenna to shape.

Valyrian Steel

09

Playing with Dolls

I haven't played with dolls in years…

Sansa sat at her dressing-table, tiny pots laid out, some of them scented prettily, reminding her of a bouquet of Tyrell roses drifting about the gardens in King's Landing, candlelight glinting off the mirror before her. Her face was the same as it had been in King's Landing, though a little older admittedly. She had become a woman during her years as a hostage. There was a glint of steel in her eyes now that she had never developed through all her torments under Joffrey's tyranny. She sighed, setting down her fine silver-handled brush with its soft bristles, and savoured the quiet crackling of the fire in the great hearth, the snap and pop of the white-hot logs and the soft hiss of chestnuts as they cooked in the embers, a treat to warm her as she worked late into the night in the privacy of her chamber, without her constricting gowns, without her corseting and braids.

In her parents' chamber, hers now due to Jon's thoughtfulness and sense of guilt at taking Sansa's place as heir of Winterfell, Sansa allowed herself rare moments of peace. She left her hair unbound, past her waist, and closed her eyes, savouring the quiet, and the warmth, tiny snow-kisses from the window left open a crack dusting her skin; her father could never breathe with the rooms closed up and stuffy, and she had found that being in the North again, she preferred the crisp air more than unbearable heat. The smell of snow was home; it was also freedom. The snow had saved her from the fall; had also slowed down those hunting her. Eyes closed, she reached in front of her, her fingertips brushing against the tiny figures arranged neatly before her mirror.

Reading Maester Luwin's progresses on Larra's education, Sansa had discovered that a good deal of her siblings' learning in matters of war had come from a game. Cyvasse. She had heard of it in King's Landing, of course, but there was no one at court who had wanted to be seen to be befriending Sansa Stark to play it with, let alone learn the game - until Margaery, of course, and she had hardly needed little figures and a carved board with moveable tiles when she was so adept at manipulating people wherever she wanted them to be, moving deftly across a continent to claim what she wanted. Yes, Margaery had been skilled at the game; the Tyrells had underestimated Cersei's careless wrath. Robb had been adept at war; but had forgotten the principles of the game itself. There was always more going on that the board did not show.

Sansa had been learning how to play cyvasse.

She had discovered in Maester Luwin's progresses that he had taught Larra and their brothers carpentry, as a means of teaching them the value of craftsmanship; and they had used their skills to make their own set of cyvasse pieces. But the Knight of the Vale who had professed himself a lover of cyvasse and committed an hour every day to playing with Sansa in the solar with a cup of tea and a biscuit, had told her that the sets her siblings had carved were utterly unique. A standard cyvasse set consisted of various quantities of ten standard pieces: Rabble, spearmen, crossbowmen, light-horse, heavy-horse, trebuchet, catapult, dragons, elephants and kings. Her siblings' cyvasse sets were utterly unique, and tailored to their lessons of history, geography, economics, trade, strategy and religion, among other things. Each of their campaigns had been meticulously recorded by her siblings in one small tome Maester Wolkan had unearthed from the Maester's Tower, from the very earliest lessons in basic strategy to the last, most complex campaigns her siblings had spent months planning and completing. There were also unique pieces Maester Wolkan had had carved by Winterfell carpenters: With each throw of the dice, new obstacles and challenges altered the wars, and her siblings had had to adjust their strategies. Sometimes they had started with a familiar scenario, the sequence of events leading up to significant conflicts, and how they would have reacted with their benefit of hindsight, and how those strategies played out; how they might have affected the world in which they lived, if they would have lived at all.

With each new campaign, Sansa's siblings had created new pieces for their cyvasse sets, and Maester Luwin had created more complex obstacles, introduced new challenges. Sometimes they had been forced to consider how to rebuild after a conflict, using what little resources remained, considering their allies. Maester Wolkan had presented her the cyvasse sets where Maester Luwin had always kept them: in a tall, slender inlaid chest that Maester Luwin had had made especially, half Sansa's height, a door concealing several drawers. Each of her siblings had one drawer where their pieces were stored together, nestled in velvet; there were other drawers full of the carved and painted tiles they used, and added to with each campaign. The lowest drawer contained the stratagems her siblings had written in response to each campaign, meticulous planning, including vulnerabilities, allies, neutral regions and potential alliances, ledgers, and the phrase Jon had mentioned before he left Winterfell - Larra's designated survivors.

The Knight of the Vale had taken to reading the Maester's reflections and her siblings' stratagems, absolutely infatuated with the meticulous devotion to the art of learning this altered version of cyvasse - its place in their education and the real-world application that had made Robb Stark undefeated in the field of battle when he was murdered; and Jon, a Night's Watch steward, King of the North allied with the Free Folk for the first time in thousands of years.

Sansa had taken her favourite pieces from each of her siblings' cyvasse sets, and they stood side by side in front of her mirror, in pride of place. The tiny ship with a kraken figurehead on the bow, the tiniest cotton sail stitched with a kraken sigil - she recognised Larra's stitching, though it was Theon's piece. Robb had a running direwolf carved from boar tusk, possibly the first boar he had killed himself on a hunt. Jon had a faceless horseman charred by the fire to appear all in black: He had always known he would join the Night's Watch, to die in anonymity.

And Larra…Larra's pieces intrigued Sansa and her Knight of the Vale equally, the Knight because they were so unusual, and Sansa because they were so exquisite. In Larra's progresses, which Sansa was still reading, Maester Luwin had often commented that Larra devoted herself wholeheartedly to any given task set her, once she was shown the basics and was allowed to fly: What she attempted, she conquered, and once Maester Luwin had started teaching her patience, it had been drille into Larra to devoted herself to completing every task, no matter how small. Sansa remembered sitting for portraits: She remembered how meticulous Larra was, and how hard she was on herself if she did not meet the standards she held herself to. Every one of Larra's pieces was a work of art in itself, utterly creative and meticulously designed, flawlessly rendered. Sansa often wondered how many times Larra had had to practice before getting the pieces just as she liked them.

From Larra's set, Sansa had taken the perfect, miniature weirwood tree. Its trunk and branches were carved from a single chunk of weirwood; scarlet silk had been cut and stitched into the tiniest five-pointed leaves, barely bigger than the nail on her little finger, stitched and coiled around the branches with invisible white threads.

When Sansa sighed, the ruby-red silk leaves shivered as if in a breeze in the godswood.

Every midday, Sansa sat in the solar with a cup of tea and played cyvasse with a Knight of the Vale. Every evening after braiding her hair to turn to her bed, she looked to the four tiny figures before her mirror, touching each of them with her fingertip, thinking of the ones who had created them. Almost a prayer. Robb, Larra, Theon, Jon. Two were gone. Two were absent; but Larra's touch lingered in the pieces they had all left behind - a hairpin that had been transfigured into a sword for Jon's Ranger of the North; the kraken stitched lovingly onto the tiny sail of Theon's ship; the meticulously-carved handsome face of the direwolf and even the pads of its paws, a touch only Larra would have had the artist's eye and patience to even remember.

She reflected on the tiles Sansa had asked the carpenters to make her, alongside their other war preparations: the pieces she had commissioned that were not to be found among those her siblings had left behind. Most of them were gone, but their legacy was what they had left her to learn from.

I haven't played with dolls in years, she thought, reflecting on her day, with Littlefinger skulking in the shadows, doing what he did best, using her servants to gather information she did not drip-feed him. Now my dolls are living and breathing and most of them are set upon murdering me.

Cersei's last raven-scroll was coiled neatly beside her candleholder, demanding Jon go south to swear fealty - or die by Cersei's design. She kept it as a physical reminder. Beside the tight cylinder, a small vase of herbs from the glasshouse kept another raven-scroll unfurled; it was from Lord Manderly, telling Sansa that Jon had set sail safely from White Harbour, with a small fleet of ships Ser Rodrick had tasked the Manderlys and Umbers to build when Robb had headed south with the Northern bannermen.

Robb had never used the ships, but they bore the Stark sigil on their sails.

Jon was the first King in the North to have a fleet of his own for centuries.

She would have rather had her brothers and sisters back than a fleet of ships, or news that Jon had safely departed to one of the most dangerous places in Westeros; the bowels of a dragon.

A small pile of raven-scrolls rested beside Lord Manderly's unfurled scroll. She kept it open to reassure herself. But the others demanded her attention, no matter that it was nearly the hour of the wolf, and she was to take a dawn progress around Winter's Town, which had been rebuilt in the years since the Ironborn and Boltons sacked it. During any given winter, it had been customary for most Northmen to turn to Winterfell for shelter and sustenance - full to bursting, it could house at least twenty-thousand. Every one of them would need to shelter within the walls come the inevitable battle against the Night King. Sansa was learning more every day, thanks to the combined efforts of Lord Royce, Master Wolkan - with whom she took three hours' instruction every morning after breaking her fast early - and Larra, who had kept her own observations and lists and plans in a small diary in her sewing-box in her bedchamber. Larra had been left to rule Winterfell with Maester Luwin, until Bran reached manhood, and winter was coming; she had had to think ahead, and Sansa combed through her sister's notes, learning as much about her sister's cleverness as preparing for winter in the midst of wartime. By the time Maester Luwin's last notes had been scratched hastily into Larra's progress, the North had been actively engaged in a war to the south, which had already cost them the autumn and a good deal of the manpower for harvest; and winter was coming.

It was Larra's notes, and her memories of the bouquet of Tyrells in King's Landing, and their cooks from the Reach with their unusual, flavourful dishes, that had Sansa, early the next morning, writing a raven-scroll and signing it as Sansa Stark, Lady Regent of the Northern Kingdom. She sealed it, and fed a raven before sending it on its way to the Reach, where it arrived, ten days later, just in time to catch Lady Olenna Tyrell before she climbed into her wheelhouse, bound for the eastern coast and a Tyrell ship to Dragonstone.

The great beasts swooped and soared, banking and diving sharply. Three of them.

How long was it since last dragons hunted the lands and waters surrounding Dragonstone? Centuries? She could not remember. Every sailor manning the small but richly-laden Tyrell fleet gazed in awe and no small amount of dread as three dragons beat their enormous wings - green with a glint of bronze, like their own sigil; onyx striated with blood-red, the Targaryen sigil brought to life; and snow-white and glinting like gold - circling the last relic of Old Valyria. Dragonfire had shaped the fortress - dragonfire and sorcery. Even her tired eyes could discern the features wrought by magic to make the towers resemble dragons.

Targaryen posturing, she thought disdainfully. She remembered the Targaryens, when the family had still been strong, when Aegon the Unlikely had sat the Iron Throne. She remembered the Last Dragon. Handsome, exceptionally clever even by her exacting standards, and a fool, dead in the mud with a woman's name whispered from his lips as blood sprayed from his broken body. Rhaegar. The last true hope House Targaryen had. She remembered the Prince of Dragonstone; this had been his home, during his marriage, where both of his tragic children by the Dornish princess had been born.

His mother Queen Rhaella had died here.

Accompanied as Olenna was by a selection of her surviving grandchildren she had meticulously chosen, for the first time she felt a flicker of compassion for the Queen. Dead during childbirth, bringing forth the last of the Mad King's seed taken root in her belly. After such devastating loss, Olenna now realised the toll it took to carry on: How wonderful, to give in. To rest. To join the ones who had gone before her.

She should never have lived this long.

Fury kept her animated. Fury, and a lust for vengeance.

Queen Rhaella had given in: Olenna Tyrell would never concede.

Now the selectively blind, duty-bound Queen's daughter had come to reclaim her family's ancestral seat. The very last of noble Valyrian dragonseed left to the world.

With three dragons.

One alone could lay waste to King's Landing within a fraction of an hour. What Cersei had left intact of the city, of course. Olenna dreamed of Harren and his great castle: Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Cersei roasted within the halls of the Red Keep, smirk seared from her face by dragonfire.

From what Olenna had heard, the Dragon Queen had no qualms turning her dragons loose to get what she wanted. She had fed Meereenese nobles to them, to instil fear and try and subvert a revolt.

Was that any better than Cersei Lannister using wildfire to blow up the Great Sept? To murder not only Olenna's son, and grandson and granddaughter, her nieces and nephews and their children - but Cersei's own family. Her own Lannister ladies-in-waiting, her cousins, her uncle. Any Lannister who reminded her that she was not nearly as clever as she thought - she was hardly her father's daughter: Cersei was all fury, no finesse. Tywin had been ruthless and implacable and Olenna had been amused to find herself respectful of him: It was rare to find her match, and she had luxuriated in the excitement, the spark, after so long, to have to stretch her wits.

It was dreadfully dull being the cleverest person in the room all of the time.

It had been almost pleasant to be outmanoeuvred, when it had been the Stark girl they were fighting over like spoiled children in the nursery who would rather tear the doll in two than let the other have it.

She had heard that Tywin's deformed monster of a son had been named Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen. He had been a disappointment, a browbeaten Master of Coin, not at all the drunken whoremonger she had been amused to hear stories of, with wits as sharp as Valyrian steel. Once again she had found herself utterly disappointed.

Olenna wondered very much how this Targaryen girl measured up.

She did not anticipate much.

After all this time, Olenna was an excellent judge of character and intellect - and after recent experience, was the unlikeliest person in the world to underestimate those she believed lack intelligence or charisma.

Cersei had her wildfire, and the Targaryen had her dragons. They would burn King's Landing to the ground to claim what little remained of the Iron Throne once the fires had burned to ash. But how much wildfire could Cersei's pyromancers make, especially when the Targaryen girl's dragons had burned King's Landing and her armies of savages and eunuchs had laid siege to the city's gates and harbour.

The Targaryen girl would get what she wanted, Olenna was certain of it.

How she got there made little difference to her: Olenna only desired her House to survive whatever onslaught was coming, to see her family thrive after Cersei's best attempts to rip the roses out of Westeros root and stem.

She had often disdained the words of the family into which she had engineered she be married into. Growing strong.

Not dangerous words. Not the grim warnings of the Starks, nor the disdain of the Ironborn, We do not sow, or even the taunts of the Martells, Unbowed, unbent, unbroken… Those were arrogant words - but true. Princess Nymeria had once been a great heroine of Olenna's in her childhood. No. The Tyrell words were Growing Strong. As the men lowered a little boat from the side of their ship and rowed her and her eldest surviving granddaughter to shore, Olenna observed the girl and reflected on the Tyrell words. There was a certain stubborn resilience to them. For all they decorated everything within her sight with roses, it was the vines beneath that mattered; cut back, they returned, spring after spring, supporting the exquisite blooms year after year.

The girl was no Margaery, but of course, who could compare? Margaery had been exceptional. Her eldest cousins had stood in as her ladies-in-waiting at court, the prettiest, wiliest of Olenna's granddaughters plucked from Highgarden to place themselves strategically at court, using their pretty petals to coax would-be allies close enough to wrap their vines around, before they even realised they were ensnared, thorns in their sides, and supporting the Tyrell roses.

Burned to ash, in a single moment.

Olenna would have been, too, if not for her granddaughter's note. A single, poorly-etched Tyrell rose, sketched in charcoal from the fire on a scrap of parchment ripped from the Book of the Seven. Olenna had it folded and tucked against her breast over her heart, still. Margaery's warning to leave King's Landing - her warning had been against the High Sparrow and his pestilential Faith Militant, not Cersei…either way, Olenna was alive and Margaery was dead and she could not help but grieve that it was so. It should be Margaery in her place, ruling Highgarden in her own right as Lady of the Reach, and Olenna no more than ashes carried on the wind.

It should have been Margaery tutoring her surviving cousins; it should have been Margaery sending emissaries to Dragonstone.

As it was, Olenna would teach her last surviving heirs through her example. Her granddaughter, Alynore. She had been one of the younger ones, too young to attend court when Margaery became Queen; and, the youngest of five sisters, she had always been a delicate little bud overlooked because of the larger blooms with luxurious petals and decadent beguiling perfumes. She lacked Margaery's seemingly guileless blue eyes and sweetly smirking rosebud mouth and insouciant little chin, but Olenna could not deny her granddaughter Alynore had her own beauty.

Sometime between the start of the War of the Five Kings and Margaery's wedding to Tommen, Alynore Tyrell had grown up. Olenna could not quite put her finger on when; truth be told, she knew so very little about this granddaughter.

Alynore had the most exquisitely virginal face Olenna could ever remember seeing. As if the Maiden herself were personified in her granddaughter.

Margaery's blue eyes had glinted with shrewd charisma: Alynore's delicate green eyes were beguiling in their sweetness, framed in lashes that fluttered, the tips glinting gold. Her nose was far prettier than Margaery's, her features almost perfectly symmetrical, and her lips were lush and rose-pink. She was blessed with glowing ivory skin, and cheeks that flushed naturally. Her hair was a soft, pretty brown that glinted with rich gold tones even in the cold island sunlight, and she wore it twisted away from her face with intricate little braids, the rest loose, shining to her waist in gentle waves. Her smile was modest and inherently kind.

As the eldest surviving Tyrell granddaughter, mothers all over the Reach would look to Alynore as a model for their daughters' modesty and sweetness.

And men would tear each other to pieces to be the first to mount her. Their lust for temptresses who brought to life every dark fantasy was matched only by their lust for untouched maidens who yielded to their advances, eyes wide and thighs soft.

Where Margaery had been playful and coy, Alynore was gentle and unsettlingly earnest. Alynore was soft-spoken and naturally shy, where Margaery had become accustomed to being fawned over, always the centre of attention. Margaery had had exquisite self-assuredness and poise, while Alynore was modest and showed her emotions in endearing little ways.

She was shy; but Olenna was privately impressed how gracefully Alynore was adapting to her new position - eldest heir to the Reach, after her younger brothers at Highgarden. Olenna was not an easy woman to be near to: Alynore endured her tyranny with a seemingly bottomless well of patience.

It rather shamed Olenna to think it, but she knew so little of the girl Alynore truly was behind that virginal face and her mild manners. Was she only calm, and helpful, taking the initiative, anticipating what Olenna wanted or needed, to keep her happy, to help Olenna's work, to have meals prepared before Olenna realised she was hungry… Alynore would have made a wonderful lady-in-waiting - a role she had truly been trained for by her mother and her septas as soon as Margaery had set her eye on Joffrey - but the eldest female heir of House Tyrell? That was a different role entirely.

She was now the prize rose in the garden.

Alynore had to learn.

"Close your mouth, my dear," Olenna said, with a touch of impatience, reaching out to gently stroke her granddaughter's delicate little chin to soften the sting of her words. "You must learn to disguise your reactions - let nothing appear to shock you, no matter how gruesome. Never betray amusement if it costs another person their dignity, for it will be remembered. You must become a swan, my dear. No matter how madly you must scramble beneath the surface to remain afloat, to the world you are nothing but serene and elegant, unflappable."

Alynore closed her mouth, but her eyes flickered back to the dragons careening overhead, larger now as the little boat carried them to the little dock. A small island, reliant on fish for survival during the winter, Olenna observed the miniscule fleet of fishing boats docked in the small harbour.

"Now that we know the rumours are true, how do things change, Grandmother?" Alynore asked, grimacing subtly as the boat jolted against the wall, some of the smallfolk lingering offering their aid, in the hopes of a coin. They earned it, helping Olenna to solid ground once more. With the benefit of youth she would always take for granted until it was inexplicably gone, Alynore ascended elegantly from the little boat, offering the rough fishermen a smile that had them half in love with her, all thought of coin forgotten as they drank in those rosy lips and gentle green eyes, had her murmur of thanks - perhaps the kindest word any of them had ever had from a highborn - especially one so fine.

Olenna watched the girl, and raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she had it, after all.

Appearances were deceiving.

However, there was nothing duplicitous about the Unsullied patrolling the harbour, like a small regiment of featureless beetles; there was nothing but undisguised threat and hostility from the shabby Dothraki with their deep copper skin and oiled braids threaded with silver bells of victory, longer than any of her granddaughters' hair. There was nothing confusing about the threat of those three dragons.

As for their mother…

She made note of the eerie silence in what should have been a bustling harbour bringing in fish to overwinter the smallfolk. Salt should have been shipped in from the Saltpans to preserve it. She saw precious few faces belonging to natives of the island: Those she saw were drawn, suspicious, harried.

It could not be plainer that Daenerys Targaryen was occupying Dragonstone, in only the worst connotations: She knew enough of the smallfolk to read the signs. The Dothraki and Unsullied were not welcomed, not wanted: They were feared, and tolerated only… Dragonstone had not been liberated…its people were oppressed by fear with the mere presence of the Breaker of Chains and her armies.

The smallfolk of Dragonstone, some of whom may have been descended from Valyrians themselves when the Targaryen dragon-lords first claimed the island as an outpost of their empire, were too afraid of the invaders to prepare for winter.

"It makes things rather simple. The Targaryen girl will use those dragons to take what she wants with fire and blood. Oh, I am sure she may have some qualms about burning King's Landing. But, when one gets what one truly desires, does one linger on doubts and guilt about how it came to fall into your lap?" Olenna tutted. She hadn't lost a night's sleep over Joffrey's death: She had slept the sounder for it.

"The raven-scroll said Daenerys Stormborn intends to liberate the Seven Kingdoms from the tyranny of Cersei Lannister…"

"They say this Dragon Queen is an idealist, a champion of the enslaved and downtrodden…a slippery path to tread, utterly treacherous to the unwary - and the unwise. One day her quest to reshape the world will see her people cowering before her whims, as any slave who values his life minds his owner's will…"

"I saw a Martell ship in the harbour. I wonder why Prince Doran has sent an emissary: The Mad King kept Elia Martell and her babies hostage. Dorne will not have forgotten that. They will never forgive that the Targaryens cost them their sister," said Alynore thoughtfully.

"House Lannister butchered Elia Martell and her children. House Lannister cost Dorne their favourite prince. Do you imagine the Dornish will ignore the opportunity to eradicate the last of House Lannister?"

"But Tyrion Lannister serves as Hand to Daenerys Targaryen; and he was the one the Red Viper was champion for in the trial-by-combat that claimed his life," Alynore frowned gently. "Why would the Dornish ally with Daenerys Targaryen if her advisers are from their enemy's House?"

"Hand of the Queen! Their working days are too long, their lives are too short," Olenna smirked. "Do you know how many Hands Aerys burned before the Kingslayer opened his throat in the Throne Room? Unlike the Kingslayer's own maiming, these Hands are easily replaced."

"I've heard Prince Doran is cautious. Why wouldn't Dorne stay out of any conflict, if it's in Dornish interests to remain neutral and preserve their strength?" Alynore pondered. "The North has declared independence from the Iron Throne. They have already liberated themselves from Cersei Lannister."

"After she has claimed the Iron Throne, how do you imagine Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, recovers the North as one of the seven dominions she covets?" Olenna asked tartly. Alynore gave her a look. It was a look Olenna had given many times: It spoke much more than words. It said her granddaughter, for all her virginal looks and gentle manners, was no fool.

"How is this Targaryen queen any different if she uses the threat of dragons to get what she wants, instead of wildfire?" Alynore asked.

"Oh, she uses more than the threat of them, my dear; she has burned people all across Essos and the Dothraki Sea, nobles and smallfolk alike, for getting in her way," Olenna said airily. "I imagine this sovereign is no different than any other. Using cunning and admiration in equal measure to take what they want, and keep a rigid hold on it no matter the cost."

"Margaery did that," Alynore murmured. Olenna glanced at her granddaughter. "Daenerys Targaryen will take the Iron Throne. Grandmother, why are we here?"

"When she unleashes those monstrous creatures, she will take King's Landing in a heartbeat, and the rest of Westeros will fall at her feet within the week," Olenna said certainly. "And it will be remembered who stood by her side on her journey to the capital, long before all the other lords started to grovel for forgiveness and favours."

"Why do you not have my brother declare independence, as the North has done?" Alynore asked quietly, glancing around, as a small carriage appeared: They were expected, after all. Alynore's grip was strong as Olenna used her for support to climb in. It was musty from disuse. She imagined most things in Dragonstone were, after Stannis Baratheon's exodus north. The Targaryen girl had merely commandeered them. "Let dragons and lions kill themselves to destroy each other."

"Listen closely, my dear," Olenna said shrewdly, as they settled and the carriage jolted into motion. "We are here to meet with this Targaryen girl, and get the measure of her. There are ways and means of handling impracticalities if she proves unsuitable. While you are at Dragonstone you will listen, and you will observe. They will be too busy being affronted by me to pay much attention to you; their tongues will be looser around you if they believe you're sweet and docile and about as threatening as the rosebud you look. For all I thought Sansa Stark was a simple, dull creature, she survived Cersei Lannister for years; now she rules the North as Lady Regent for her baseborn brother. She kept her mouth shut, except to say what people wanted to hear; you must learn to survive, my girl. Learn to play the game better than anyone. Better than Margaery…anticipate the likes of Cersei…and learn to get the measure of a person yourself, rather than rely on their reputations. Do their actions match their philosophies? I want you to watch Daenerys Stormborn. I want you to question how she acts, and why; and every decision she makes; learn who she listens to, and understand the bonds between them to get the measure of their influence; anticipate how she will react, and what she will demand. What did you observe in the harbour?"

"It seemed strangled with dread. No-one was working," Alynore said, and she flicked her gentle green eyes at Olenna before murmuring, "There was a girl…I think they were Dothraki."

"They take slaves as dogs rut on bitches," Olenna said coolly. "They believe their braids entitle them to take whatever they wish. Westerosi lords are no different, of course; but not nearly so brazen about it - with a few exceptions. She will not be the first on this island to be raped before the Dragon Queen takes her conquest to the mainland. Copper-skinned bastards will abound throughout the Seven Kingdoms before the Targaryen girl is done. Within a generation perhaps Westeros will become the heart and home of the khalasaars. They say Vaes Dothrak still smoulders, a ruin."

She tucked the observation away. Breaker of Chains indeed.

Under her very nose, the Dragon Queen's soldiers abused those she had vowed to liberate.

And her granddaughter had noticed it in a moment's glimpse of the harbour. Thinking on it, didn't Alynore have to be observant to anticipate what Olenna wanted in any given moment? She settled back in the carriage, as it trundled up the side of a volcanic mountain toward the monstrous castle, and rested, as much as she was able, before the inevitable meeting with Daenerys Targaryen.

A.N.: I LOVE OLENNA. I just…Diana Rigg. Goddess. Put her and the Dowager Countess of Grantham at the same dinner-table? The conflagration of barbs and one-liners would put Daenerys' Dance around King's Landing to shame!