The Dragon and the Hawke 14
Barristan Selmy wasn't happy when he learnt what Marian did to the Great Masters of Meereen in retaliation for what they did to the slave children on the road. For almost the entire time she had been unconscious, he had been trying to council Dany on the benefits of mercy.
Obviously, when Marian had buried the Masters, she hadn't known of his position, but she did very soon after. It was a few hours after, when she was enjoying lunch, that the old Knight came to her, "you should know, I've been trying to get Dany to spare the masters for two days."
"Why would you do that!?" Marian's question is asked with a mixture of incredulity and horror.
"Sometimes it is best to respond to injustice, with mercy," he tells her, causing her to frown and furrow her eyes at him. While she looks him up and down he remains silent, until the silence stretches to more than a minute. Finally he asks, "why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm just trying to understand what kinda fucked up place you come from that stringing up more than a hundred fifty kids in a row to prove a point doesn't merit some kind of response!" Marian tells him, waving her hands emphatically to emphasize her incredulity.
"I am from Westeros," Barristan tells her
"And do fucked up things like child murder get thrown under the rug a lot?" Marian asks in alarm
The silence and guilty look that the old Knight replies with tells Marian all that she needs to know, and she stands and claps him on the arm, "yeah, see, where I'm from, stuff like that gets a response. A pretty big one, too."
"Even if it is the nobility that has done the act?" Barristan counter asks, fed up with Marian's superior attitude
"Hell yeah!" Marian nods, "as smug as those rich ass hats think they are, a lynch mob clears them of those notions real quick!"
"You can't be serious," Barristan shakes his head, not being able to conceive of a land where the people stood up against the nobility.
Marian smirks and pats his shoulder, telling him, "one day, I'll tell you about the Denerim Alienage, and how a hero was born there and stood up to a bunch of rich pricks."
Barristan watches as she walks away after that. As she turns a corner and disappears from sight, he thinks on what she has said. Years of following mad or bad kings and watching as they did nothing may have changed his perspective, he began to realfall
He remembered watching as the royal children were brought before Robert Baratheon, and the terrible smile of satisfaction on his face. Thinking on it, and on so many instances like it that he had lost count of under the Mad King, he could almost track the failing nature of his conscience. Just thinking about all of the actions that he had been witness to and said nothing against, to him the horrors that men perpetrated on each other made more sense than letting Marian enact her revenge.
And he could see that this wasn't right, and it certainly wasn't what the queen would want.
While Barristan was doing his best to change the way he saw the world, Marian was looking for Dany and Missandei. They had separated when Marian finally felt the lack of food from her two days asleep, and the other two had gone to Dany's new pyramid while Marian went to grab a bite from the camp outside the city.
They had offered to get her something to eat in the pyramid, but the last of Marian's personal rations were in the camp, and she wanted to finish them before they went bad. Now she was walking through the city towards the massive pyramid in its center.
As she walked, she noticed a lot of different types of looks she was receiving from the people of the city as she walked through it. There were fleeting glances of awe, sidelong glares, straight on angry stares, and there were also the occasional once overs out of lust, sizing her up like an opponent to be faced. In summation, a lot of people looked at her in a lot of different ways on her way to the pyramid.
As she passed through the market district, she took the time to buy an apple. She did not expect it to turn into a massive event, but apparently, a woman with magic buying an apple has to cause drama. When she went to pay the vendor with one of the shiny copper coins she had collected from the coffers for just such an occasion, the man shook his head and waved his hand. Thinking she wasn't paying enough, she raised a hand in apology and added a second coin. When he again refused, she added a third, followed by a fourth, then a fifth.
Eventually she was holding a silver coin and sixteen copper ones in one fist, nearly forcing the man to take the money before one of the Unsullied came up to her to see what was going on. The vendor turned to the soldier and spoke to him in Valyrian, the unsullied nods and turns to Marian, "He.. will… not… take… money."
"What?" Marian jerks her head back in shock, "Why not?"
The Unsullied translates her question and the man tells him, "He… does… not… want… to… charge… a… god."
"Oh!" Marian nods in understanding, then smiles at the man, and hands the Unsullied the silver coin in her hand after returning the coppers to her money pouch, "Pay him for my apple. Then tell him that everyone should pay for goods, and that nobody is above that, not even me."
The Unsullied nods, and holds out the coin to the vendor, telling the man what Marian told him. The vendor takes the coin, eyes widening with awe, and he drops into a bow to Marian. The mage flicks her eyes from side to side awkwardly, and with her left hand waves for the guy to stand. When he does, she turns to the Unsullied and tells him, "Tell him that he never has to bow to me… and that he should spread the word that nobody should."
The unsullied does so, and she smiles at him and holds up a hand, "High five!"
She laughs in joy as the soldier smacks her hand, and through his eye holes she can see that he is also smiling. She waves goodbye to the vendor, takes a bite of her apple, and waves for the Unsullied to follow her, "So, what's your name?"
"Trod Underfoot," The Unsullied replies
"Mm, your in Grey Worm's camp right? The unsullied names are lucky cause they're the ones you had when Dany picked you up?"
"Yes," Trod nods
"I'm probably getting in the way of you doing your job right now, aren't I," Marian asks as she realizes that the Unsullied had been guarding something
"It… is… no… trouble," he replies
"Really?"
Trod nods, and Marian smiles, "Great! What were you guarding, anyway?"
He tells her, but when he realizes he had said what he was supposed to say in Valyrian, he repeats himself in common, "The graves."
"Graves?" Marian asks, then looks around, and realizes that the reason she seems to know where she is going, is because she is in the same place she buried all of those slave masters, "Oh! Hey! It's this place!"
"Yes," Trod nods
"You're the poor bastard who had to listen to them scream under there?" Marian asks, as the muffled sounds from the graves starts to hit her ears now that she is listening for them.
He nods, but tells her, "I… like… to listen."
"Good for you," Marian nods, giving him a thumbs up as she takes another bite of her apple, "Always good to like what you do."
Trod nods as they reach the end of the courtyard. Marian stops at the exit and smiles at him, "I'll let you get back to doing your job, I gotta go see if Da- uh, the queen needs anything…"
Trod Underfoot nods, and marches off as Marian starts to ascend the hill to the entrance to the Pyramid. The trek up takes longer than the mage expects, and by the time she is at the entrance, a light sheen of sweat covers her face and soaks her underclothes.
She wipes her face and enters the Pyramid, and fails to ask anyone for directions. The result is that a half an hour later she is on the outside of the pyramid again. Only this time, she is on a balcony staring out at the city in wonder.
Not twenty feet above her, Dany is having a council meeting. Looking around the room, she asks, "Where is Marian?"
Grey Worm tells her that she had entered the pyramid half an hour previous, but that nobody had managed to catch sight of her in the last five minutes to tell her where to go. Missandei snorts in amusement as she realizes what must have happened, and explains to the others when they look at her for context, "She must have gotten lost."
Dany chuckles herself, and Barristan and Jorah smile while Daario rolls his eyes in amusement. Turning back to the balcony, Dany looks out on the city scape and asks, "So, what news is there?"
"King Joffrey Baratheon is dead," Jorah tells her, eliciting a few shocked looks, and Dany turns around to look at him, silently asking for more details, "Murdered at his own wedding."
"And we've taken the Meerees navy, your grace," Barristan adds, though Daario is quick to jump in.
"The Second Sons took the navy," He says as he sits down.
Dany, again not terribly impressed with Daario's activities, asks, "Who told you to take the navy?"
"No one." He says as he grabs a grape from the platter in the center of the war table
"So why did you do it?"
"I heard you like ships," Daario shrugs as he plops the grape into his mouth
Dany turns, thinking on his words, but before she can ask how many ships, there is a call from below in a very recognizable voice, "Hey! Dany! Are you up there!?"
"Marian?" Dany strides onto the balcony and looks down, and sees her friend on the floor below. When the mage spots her, she smiles and waves in excitement. Dany rolls her eyes and asks, "Where have you been? Grey Worm said you entered the palace half an hour ago!"
"I got lost!" Marian tells her, then splays her hands and exclaims, "This place is big!"
"Can you get up here?"
"Yeah! Gimme a second!" Marian takes a few steps back, vanishing from sight, and the next Dany sees of her, she is jumping off of the balcony.
Dany gives a startled yell, and the rest of her council jump up to see what it is that Marian has done now. Luckily, they needn't have bothered, as there is a streak of blue and a flush of cold air, and Marian is standing on the balcony, full and whole and not hanging in mid air. The queen turns to look at her, and before anything else can be said, smacks her in the unarmored shoulder.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"You jumped off a balcony!"
"Yeah, I needed space!"
"So you jumped off a balcony!?"
"Okay, sorry! Won't happen again!" Marian raises her hands in surrender, then turns to smile at Missandei, who had stepped up to them. She is about to extend a greeting, when she is once more slapped in her unarmored shoulder, "Ow!"
"You jumped off a balcony!?" Missandei asks, sounding more worried and emotional than any in the room had heard her before
"I'm sorry, alright!" Marian grabs her in a hug and holds her, "I promise I won't do it again!"
"You better not," Daario laughs, slipping back into his seat, "Never worry a love, Lady Hawke, that way lies destruction."
Marian rolls her eyes and leads Missandei back into her seat, sitting down and laying the summer islander over her lap. Jorah and Barristan look slightly uncomfortable at the visible sign of affection between two women, but as Dany had already given the match an okay, and they had grown accustomed to Marian as a whole, neither said anything.
"So," Marian looks to Dany, "What's this about ships?"
"My Second Sons claimed the navy," Daario tells her
"Oh, how many ships did Meereen have?" Marian asks
"ninety three," Barristan tells her
"How many men can they carry?" Dany asks
"Ninety three hundred, not counting sailors," He tells her
"Would that be enough to take King's Landing?" The queen asks
"Aren't we planning on taking a continent?" Marian asks
Dany raises an eyebrow at her
"Well I get the feeling that you need more than ten thousand men to take and hold a country, much less a continent," Marian notes, then cites an example, "When the Orlesians conquered Ferelden, they had a force of a hundred thousand that had to stay in the country to keep control. And Fereldan is a lot smaller than Westeros."
Dany, Jorah, and Barristan, familliar with Marian's history from the long story sessions before they had bought the unsullied, understood the reference, but Daario raises an eyebrow, "What are Fereldan and Orlesians?"
"Orlais and Fereldan are two contries where I'm from," Marian tells him, "A few decades before I was born, the Orlesian empire conquered Fereldan and managed to hold it for a few years more before they were kicked out."
"So, you're saying we don't have the manpower to succeed?" He clarifies
"Yeah," She nods, "Even with me and the dragons, the shit could hit the fan at any time."
Dany frowns as she sees half formed visions of taking the seat of her family's power burn in her mind as quickly as they had risen, and says, "Leave me, I wish to be alone."
Everyone nods, but then Dany calls, "Marian, Jorah, could you stay?"
The two exchange looks and stop while everyone else files out. Marian tells Missandei that she will meet her later before the woman exits the room, and then the three of them are all that are left. Dany turns to look out to the city and asks, "What do you think I should do?"
Jorah and Marian step up to either side of her and Jorah notes, "You could sail for Westeros, take King's Landing, perhaps call upon the Dornish for aid. They hate the Lannisters, and would no doubt be willing to help."
"Or you could stay here," Marian counter offers when Jorah nods at her, "And rule a people that love you, and change Slaver's Bay into the new seat of a Targaryen Empire, one that started for better reasons than your ancestor."
Dany stepped forward, deep in thought, and looked out into the seething mass of Meereen, the third city that had fallen to her, and loved her for it. Nodding to herself she turns back to look at her two closest companions, who had not led her astray for as long as she had known them.
"I will stay, and I will rule."