The Witch Queen of Essos
Tyene: (covered in soot, a thoroughly unamused look in her eyes)
Wanda: (chuckles nervously) Hey, it could have been worse... (panics when Tyene's sword comes out) Gotta go! I do not own Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, enjoy!
Chapter 5: The Kingdom of Essos
Ginny worked fairly quickly, considering the amount of ground she and the Golden Company covered before Lillian's tenth nameday.
Astapor was her first stop, at Rhaegar's recommendation. It was a fair bit of distance from Meereen, but it was also one of the slave trading hubs. Ginny arrived there alone a few days after doing repair work in her newly minted main city and made her way in under a cloak under the guise of wanting to buy some Unsullied slave soldiers.
However, after the eight thousand slaves had been paraded before her and the exchange was made, Ginny let her hood down and ordered the Unsullied to slay every slave owner and to strike off the chains of their fellow imprisoned.
"Stop her!" Kraznys had shouted, just as the Unsullied hacked through two of the whip wielders who had tormented them for years.
Ginny gave him a cold look. "Forgive me for not introducing myself properly. I am Ginerva Gryffin d'Or, the Witch Queen of Meereen, and I will burn this continent down to its foundations before I suffer the slave trade to continue!"
Once the city had been liberated, Ginny freed the Unsullied, saying that if they wished to leave she would not stop them, but she intended to free other cities and wished for some assistance. Not a single Unsullied chose to leave her service.
Next, she took on Pentos. She set the roads on fire and brought down the houses, so her opponents were blocked into tight corners where her men could slaughter them. Once the walls had fallen, she personally went about freeing the youngest of the slaves. She would reunite families, and housed all the orphans in her former place of residence. Then she would fix the damage she had done during the attack before resting for a few days.
After that, Ginny brought her forces to Volantis, where she was joined by Rhaegar and the ever expanding Golden Company. The siege proved tiresome and a long grudge match, though Ginny and Sirius shattered their efficiency by teleporting into the city and slaughtering the generals and commanding officers. Their men became disorganized and broke rank, allowing the combined forces to claim the city.
The sacking of Slaver's Bay in its entirety brought Ginny pleasure and pride.
Once the battles themselves were finished, Ginny, Rhaegar and Sirius forced on connecting the cities through trade and agriculture to ensure that everyone would remain fed as the forces and income were reorganized and re purposed.
It was after that where Ginny's intelligence truly shone.
"No child should grow in squander and plague." She said when speaking with the two older men the next morning. "And if I am going to be a Queen...then I shall be a good, just and kind one."
Her first step was hospitals.
Ginny was appalled to discover that while a form of doctors existed, they only served the upper class and worked for money. There was no word in High Valyrian, or the Common Tongue, for hospitals. Ginny spent several busy months ensuring that there was a hospital in every single city under her control. She crossed Essos several times, hiring maestors to work in the buildings. She also laid down basic instructions for keeping the hospitals clean – to keep hands clean and covered when operating, to sanitize any tools after operations, and other basic safety measures from what she remembered of both mundane and magical hospitals in her first home.
She realized that encouraging education would take longer, though she did set up schools for anyone to enter where ever she could. She placed charms over her new buildings to ensure the safety of those working inside.
Next on the list were orphanages, redistributing some of the wealth gained from former slavers along her journey. Ginny and Lyanna hand picked gentle, well spoken women familiar with children to run the buildings and care for many of those rendered helpless by deaths.
Lyanna took some of these slave orphans to live inside the new palace, seeking out bastards or those who had been maimed by their former masters. They would either serve as her family's or Missandei's handmaidens, or as light working servants who delivered messages or other such tasks.
Ginny's next monumental change/task was the food drive and soup kitchens.
Redistributing the excess food many slave traders had piled up in their cupboards took some time – along with selling the idea of free food for the helpless to sceptical advisers and baffled city watchmen. Ginny ensured that the soup kitchens were in easily accessible places and run by unclaimed bastards, who could recognize their own and feel compassion for those similarly troubled. It quickly became crowded as beggars poured in, getting the first true meal in years.
Organizing trade among her newly minted kingdom was more difficult – not only because those were used to the slave trade, but because many of the lords in the cities were furious at the implications that they would have to answer to a woman.
Ginny was privately glad that she was a witch sometimes – she would have much more trouble keeping these people in line if she couldn't throw them and their knights backwards with a thought. To make it more irritating, she could directly as Rhaegar or Lyanna for advice, lest she come across as a figurehead. Thankfully, the Targaryen patriarch was more then willing to give her lessons behind closed doors, allowing Ginny to become more and more savvy as she grew into her sudden new role.
While Lyanna usually taught the Targaryen children herself with Missandei's help, Ginny still ended up hiring tutors when their new responsibilities took more and more time to complete in a single day.
As the years slowly went on, despite the roughness of the first few years Ginny found her kingdom becoming a melting pot of people from all over the world, even from across the sea.
"They say that your beggars eat like knights. They say no child sleeps in the cold in your kingdom. They say you are good." One woman said when Ginny met her at the entrance.
"Who says this?" Ginny asked.
"Everyone." The woman said eagerly.
When confronted with the issue of crowding, Ginny and Sirius went once again around the kingdom of Essos. Ginny found a solution with some thought, and used her magic to enlarge houses. She also re created the tents used for the Quiddich World Cup, making them even larger than usual after a little tinkering. These tents were soon popping up all over the place, even being offered up to travellers.
The smallfolk practically worshipped her – Ginny even ran across a temple dedicated to her once and had to gently plead for it to be turned into a hospital.
Jon found that hilarious, much to her annoyance.
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As the kingdom exploded into prosperity, the families of Targaryen and Black also grew.
Rhaenys took part in several tourneys and managed to fight off several Dorthraki on her own during a trip gone unexpectedly wrong. She grew up strong and beautiful, to Rhaegar's pride. Her long heather brown hair was usually tied up, though she let it down during balls or important meetings. While she preferred boy's clothes, she was ready and willing to wear beautiful dresses though she always had her favourite sword 'Dark Sister' strapped to her side.
Aegon grew just as book smart and well read as he was a capable warrior, much like his father. His short cut silver hair made him resemble his very first namesake, something he took in pride in. As he turned sixteen, he began to sit in while Ginny held court, hoping to absorb how politics worked in practice.
Viserys was some times troubled with nightmares and moments of psychosis – something he noticed when, in a fit of anger after an altercation with a thief, grabbed Daenerys by the shoulders and shouted in her face when she tried to comfort him. Shocked when he came back to himself and turned to Ginny for help. Ginny did her best to ease his consciousness with magic, but the twinges still persisted. Viserys channelled his issues into swordplay and strength training, making him easily the strongest out of the family.
Daenerys was largely preoccupied with being the main caretaker of the dragons. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with suitors crowded around her door (to Rhaegar and Lyanna's extreme annoyance) though she seemed largely uninterested in marriage at this time. The dragons, while friendly towards all the family, loved her the most and trusted her above all others. When the other feeders felt threatened, they asked for her help and Dany would calm them. She was the first to be able to ride one of them – Balerion. She brought Emily along for her second flight; the girls were nearly inseparable ever since the sacking of Meereen.
Jon was fascinated with winter weather and the world itself. He was interested in travelling both Essos and Westeros in their entirety, seeking out new land and new discoveries. Jon was the second to ride a dragon, Viserion. With messy black hair, he looked a lot like Lyanna's brother Eddard, which made her both happy and a little sad. He favoured strategy over brute force, something that had sparked a pseudo friendly rivalry between himself and Viserys who used brute force.
Lillian was wild and energetic, always finding new ways to push her limits. She liked to climb, run, dance and sing. Often she had to be found by soldiers on the roof of the palaces or houses or trees, where she would be perched at the top branches or spires, beaming down at the world. She, unlike her siblings, preferred archery to sword fighting – and with a talented tutor, she was becoming quite talented. She had keen eyesight, though out of the siblings she liked violence the least.
Emily Black was the one who taught Lillian to climb; she was good at it herself. She was learning magic at Sirius's knee; whenever Ginny worked with her she stated that she was impressed by the child's capabilities. Something Emily liked to do was transfiguring stones and bricks into toys that she would leave at the orphanages or with poorer families. Emily enjoyed working in the forge as well, and had made her own sword which she called 'Shatter'.
Sirius and Missandei settled in the palace quite nicely; Sirius worked with Ginny as her unofficial right hand man while Missandei oversaw less prolific civil matters that weren't important enough to go before the Queen.
Two years into the reign of Ginerva I (as Ginny would later be called) Missandei gave birth to triplets, all boys. Sirius, proud beyond words, presented them at the court while an eager Daenerys, Aegon and Emily took a look at their new siblings.
The boys, James, Remus and Harry, were shaping up to be quite reminiscent of Sirius in his younger years – energetic, fiercely loyal, instinctively protective of weaker people. James was bombastic and possessed budding charisma, Remus was quieter and more shy/thoughtful, while Harry was always eager to help and had a lot of love to give.
A year after that, Lyanna gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl.
The children were named Ginerva and Daemon III. Despite the joy, it became apparent quickly that both had been born somewhat sickly. Ginerva's lungs were weak, while Daemon had weaker bones, making their early childhood very difficult and stressful for both their parents.
When the two reached four years of age, they grew a little stronger, but Ginerva was still prone to coughing fits and Daemon probably wouldn't be able to become a knight.
Ginny discovered that this was because three old slavers had tried to feed Lyanna poisoned herbs to kill her unborn children.
Enraged, Ginny ordered his public execution after slamming all three with multiple Crucios. Aegon, also angered beyond reason, requested that the men be fed to the dragons. Ginny agreed with a quick look at the composed but stone faced Rheagar.
Quicksilver tore one of the men in half while fighting over a share with Rhaenerya. Balerion roasted the other two.
Daenerys, mother hen that she was, often looked out for her tiniest niece and nephew. Rhaenys tried to build up her half sibling's strength with periodic training, with mixed but thankfully not harmful results. Jon and Aegon acted as de facto big brothers while Viserys would immediately leave their rooms whenever he felt himself slipping from a fit.
Into the sixth year of Ginny's reign in Essos, the families prospered. Ginny, now twenty seven, was ruling a stabilized land.
Aegon had just turned sixteen. Rhaenys was eighteen. Viserys hung at nineteen while Daenerys was fifteen. Jon was sixteen, Lillian was fourteen. They had all grown into the roles they had chosen for themselves in their family.
Emily was seventeen and currently helping her mother with the the three terrors, ie her brothers. James, Harry and Remus had just turned five and were getting up to all sorts of mischief – and they all had magic. Meanwhile, Ginerva and Daemon had just turned four, to the astonishment of the maestors who had predicted that the children wouldn't make it past infancy. The lords and Queen were incredibly proud of them.
The dragons had also grown up. Rhaenyra's brilliant ruby scales often cast red light on the floors of the castle whenever she flew around the building, intending to wake her 'mother' Lillian, who loved flying more than anything else. Quicksilver was a soft silver grey colouring and took to Viserys as his rider. Out of the dragons, he was the least aggressive. Balerion's black scales were a source of pride for the eldest dragon, who acted as the de facto leader among his siblings. Viserion was snow white, and was the beta of the pack. Both he and Balerion preferred Dany as their rider, though they allowed both Rhaegar and Lyanna to ride upon them occasionally. Rhaegal was emerald green, and his favoured rider was Aegon. Visenya was a royal violet and probably the most aggressive out of them all – she only allowed Rhaenys to ride her.
It was at this point where Aegon mentioned the plan to retake the throne his family had sat upon in Westeros for many generations, stating that he thought it should happen 'soon' given their great power, including ground forces and the dragons.
Lyanna and Rhaegar were both concerned about the prophecy and when it might come about, and reluctantly believed that their son might have a point. Lyanna wasn't eager to have half her home country set on fire, so she turned to their informant to see what their chances might be for a less deadly possibility.
Varys was keeping them updated on the goings-on in Westeros. Robert Barantheon was a good warrior but a terrible king; Westeros was swimming in debt to both the Lannisters and the Iron Bank. Tensions were thick among the lords, who could all see how the Lannister family was trying to extend their influence over the throne.
"It is in a state of deep unrest." Varys's latest letter read. "whether or not Robert successfully kills himself with his wine and hunting, he has made the kingdom a boiling pot about to run over. If a civil war does begin Silver Prince, the losses will be devastating."
Ginny, like Lyanna, was on the fence about attacking Westeros unprovoked before the Long Winter began.
However, Lillian and Jon took a ride on Rhaenyra, the dragon suddenly took them across the sea. The dominos, set up beyond their control, would begin to fall from there, leading to the return of the dragon.
End Chapter
So next time, Lillian and Jon will be taken to Westeros by the dragon and we'll get to go see what Westeroes has been up to ever since Ginny's rescue of the royal family. I hope you are as eager to get there as I am!
Read and Review please!