The Dragon and the Hawke 25
It took a while to find a good corner for Marian and Barristan. When they had set out, they had started to talk about the best kinds of street performances that they had seen. Tales passed between the pair, as they recounted various encounters from their old cities. In the end, something that they realized was that location mattered a great deal.
They had to find a spot that received a lot of through traffic, but wouldn't clog if people stopped to watch them perform. They also needed to keep away from other performers, as stealing commerce wasn't the point of this exercise. They were meant to bring a tiny bit of joy to their little corner of the world, and so by the end of their second hour wandering through the city, they stopped in a circle with a fountain.
Barristan sat down on the edge of the fountain while Marian conjured three balls of flame that she started juggling. People began to slow, looking at the display with a mix of awe and curiosity. Some slowed, some moved on, and the majority enjoyed the small display of power that the local god was displaying.
After a while, Marian and Barristan traded off, and the old knight started to sing some old songs he knew from back home. People recognized the queensguard, and though they were confused and surprised by his presence and fairly decent singing voice, they did enjoy themselves as they moved past.
The day was whittled away in this manner, the old man and young mage trading off entertaining the people that stopped to give them a chance. It took a while for them to remember the hat trick, but eventually people were setting coins in the helmet that Barristan had not worn even one day of his term in office.
The helmet, a stylized rendition of a dragon, was part of the suit of armor that he was adorned in, yet another agreed upon suggestion from the combined might of Mossador and Hizdahr. It was looser than his old armor had been when he had been a goldcloak, but it felt just as effective.
But the status of his armor was not important, having the helmet on hand was. He smiled, watching men and women throw coins into the helm as Marian put on a show for them in the streets. At the moment, she was not doing magic, but instead telling a grand tale about her cousin, and how he had saved an entire nation with his friends from monsters. Children were 'wowing,' parents were smiling, and people were enjoying themselves as the day whittled on.
And then there was a scream from the back of the crowd that had grown up around them.
Barristan was on his feet in an instant, and Marian brought an end to her story to look in the direction of the scream. Both see people running towards them, panicked citizens that ran around the pair in the hopes that they would be protected.
It took less than two minutes for the area between Marian and Barristan and the source of the scream to clear. And standing across the circle are the Sons of the Harpy, dozens of them. The golden masked men stood in utter silence as they glared at the pair, and the pair in turn glared at them.
And then there was an inarticulate scream of rage, and the Harpies charged. They drew knives, hammers, sickles, and anything else that could be counted as a weapon as they ran at the heathen goddess and the queensguard.
Before the first reached them, he was already dead. A hole, punched clean through his chest from a stone accelerated past the speed of sound tore his heart out. The Sons slowed from the sudden death, and then Barristan was upon them.
Many things could be said about Barristan the Bold, but being out of practice was not one of them. Almost casual, the old man strode into battle against the Harpies, his sword striking like a flash of lighting, taking a Harpy in the throat before he turns his sword to the side to block a swing from a knife. His free arm came up and took the man by the mask and dragged him in front of the strike of a hammer, and the man's back was broken.
As Barristan proved why he was the best swordsman still alive, Marian was proving why she had never fallen in her own right. Even without her staff, the mage was a monster with magic. A flick of her hand set a man alight, another encased a Harpy in a stone tomb that slowly crushed him. A twitch of her head had three of the Harpies turning their blades on their allies. Around her was a forest of death that took more than it would ever give.
It was a bloodbath, a slaughter, and there was no mercy for the Harpies as Marian tore from them their lives. With each death, it seemed to the people watching, that her power grew. Her magic seemed to drink the lifeblood of her slain enemies. There were red glows, flowing energies, and in the center was the Thunder God.
The Harpies, for their part, began to circle the pair after the first fifteen men had been slain with such terrible ease. Rather than charge in like fools, they instead hunted for openings, and they attacked in pairs from opposite sides.
Their tactics were smart, and had they been facing anyone else, they may have worked better. Unfortunately, they were facing Barristan the bold, and the man had fought in wars where men were pressed so close together there was hardly room to swing a sword, and where death could come from any direction. He had learnt many lessons in his time as a soldier and a knight, and the most important had always been to keep his head on a swivel.
With this, he was always aware of who was charging him, and he was always prepared. His moves were precise, and never did he leave his back to anyone but Marian. He would catch his first attacker, then pivot so that his second and first were both in his line of sight. After that, dispatching them took less than a pair of seconds.
Marian, for her part, didn't have to worry about keeping her head on a swivel, she could read minds. She knew who was planning on charging her before they even set their first foot forward, and as a result, those that contemplated attacking her were on the receiving end of death by angered mage.
The crowd of terrified civilians watched with awe, horror, and excitement as the Sons of the Harpy were slowly reduced to a handful of men. They watched the goddess and the queensguard slay those that would put them back in chains, and after their fears vanished in the slaughter, they cheered. Every new Harpy that fell to the ground with a gurgle of his own blood elicited a great cry of approval from the people of Meereen.
For weeks, the people had lived in an unacknowledged state of fear of the faceless terrorists who wore the golden masks, but now their god was proving that they had no need to be afraid. They had wondered about the purpose of the show that Barristan and Marian had put on, but now they knew. They were to celebrate in the face of fear, to know with certainty that no matter how dark the day became, there was meant to be joy.
With each second, and each new zealot that was born to believe in the power that Marian held, the woman found calling forth the forces of magic to help her easier. The Fade was not something that many took the time to observe, or to acknowledge. It had always been a place that the Chantry preached the evils of. And people believed the Chantry, so nobody really knew anything about the Fade, at least, nobody that Marian knew.
As a consequence, the benefits of belief had never really been studied. Marian had never thought too hard about how she grew in power at a near constant level while she had been in Kirkwall, and because she had never noticed that, she did not notice that something very similar was happening here in Meereen. People had always believed in the Champion of Kirkwall, and her accumulated legend grew with people's knowledge and belief. The same was happening in Meereen, but also in Yunkai and Astapor; it could even be said that her power was believed as far off as Westeros.
Without any other beings to feed from the Fade in Essos and Westeros, all of that accumulated belief was flowing into the only available conduit. As a result, when Marian sent a bolt of lightning at the last of the Sons of the Harpy, there was the sound of Thunder, and the man exploded from the energy being passed through his body.
Marian blinks, then looks down at her finger with a contemplative frown. It is at this moment that Marian could have started to think about the nature of her power and her status as a divinity. But she would not be Marian Hawke if she actually started thinking about her own nature. Instead, she looks at Barristan, bathed in blood, and asks, him, "You wanna get some pie? I don't know why, but I've really got a hankering for pie right now."
Barristan simply blinks at her, trying to think of an answer, as the city guard rush into the circle, five minutes late.