The Dragon and the Hawke 31
It ended up taking two months for the Arena to be retrofitted, the fighters to be arranged, and for Daario to go through every last man who volunteered to make sure that they were actually volunteering. In the end, it seemed that most were in fact men who wanted to fight in the pits for gold and glory. The ones who did not were quickly released and whoever had tried to sell them into the pits were swiftly and silently hunted down and fed to the dragons.
It did not take that long for Tyrion to become accustomed to the court, and to find that the skills that his father had so spitefully forced upon him were integral to helping run the city. His time in Lannisport perfecting the sewage system proved invaluable for the simple reason that Meereen really needed a new way to get rid of its shit.
For centuries, the task of removing waste was done by slaves that had angered their masters or were owned by the city itself, but with slaves no longer existing, a new system needed to be made. Tyrion took a week and three massive carts full of Marian's looted gold, hired any willing man or woman from the homeless shelters, and had them dig and erect waste avenues and paths for piping to be placed in once they were complete.
When he was done, everyone was very happy with the results.
The second thing that he managed to do was get the Empire running at a profit. A letter to the Iron Bank of Braavos asked for a representative to come to appraise the cities under the empire's control and see if it was worth investing in, and then he had gone about the closest towns to Meereen and started explaining how farming had been done in Westeros.
If you could say one thing about his former home, it was that the farmers knew how to get everything they could and more out of the soil during both summer and winter. He had taken care to read up on farming methods that were and were not used in Slaver's Bay, and then change what he could. He also used his knowledge on the various methods of fishing and animal husbandry to get the food supply for the city to as high as it could get. Once he knew he had succeeded, he sent word to Yunkai and Astapor with lists of everything they were to do in order to get the same profitability from their land.
When asked how he knew what to do, both in regards to the sewage and the farming, Tyrion had told Dany, "I am a dwarf, your grace. I am a dwarf, and I am a Lannister. This means that I was born a bastard, but that I could not be left in a forest for the wolves. My elder brother is the best swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms, I chose to be the best in other ways. There is no man, not even a Maester, that knows as much as I do. I made sure of it."
"How?" Dany asks, staring down at the small man who seemed taller than any she had ever met at this moment
"Because no man has devoted as much time as myself to the accumulation of knowledge, and no many has tried to know everything about everything before myself," Tyrion tells her, "Maesters fear magic, and do not devote their time to learning about anything but the scholarly arts. I do not limit myself so, and before I fled King's Landing, I had the largest library of any on the continent."
"So you tell me you are a Maester?" Dany raises an eyebrow
"I am better than a Maester," Tyrion smirks, splaying his hands, "And far more useful, too!"
"I'll say!" Marian agrees from her seat, "I don't have to burn the air around my face when i walk through the city anymore!"
"Happy to help," Tyrion tells her, "Though I must say, Meereen was in far better condition than King's Landing."
"Why do you say that?"
"The smell of shit got into everything, even food."
"Oh, maker, that must have been terrible."
"You get used to it after a while."
Turning to Dany, Marian tells her, "I vote that when we take Westeros, we do not set up shop in King's Landing, it sounds awefull."
"It only got worse after my shit of a nephew became King," Tyrion tells her, "He stopped paying for the shit runners, and then complained constantly about the smell."
"What runners?" Dany asks, trying to figure out how they had gotten so far off track; they had originally called Tyrion in so they could thank him for his services and offer him a place on the council officially, but now they were talking about something called 'shit runners,' and she had no idea how to get off the subject.
"It isn't important, your grace," Tyrion assures her
"Very well," Dany nods, glad to have escaped a possibly difficult conversation, "Now, Tyrion Lannister, you have performed services to my Empire that have proven invaluable, ask for a reward, and if it is within my power, I will see it done."
Tyrion nods and lowers his head in thought. The dwarf thinks on everything he could ask, but then an old sympathy crawls into his heart and he knows what he has to request. Looking up, he tells the Queen, "Your grace, I do not know if you are aware, but I am wed. Or I was until I was arrested. My wife, Sansa Stark, vanished on the day of Joffrey's assassination, and my sister believes her at least partially responsible for the deed."
Dany raises an eyebrow, "What is your request, Tyrion?"
"I would ask that Marian use her abilities to find my wife, and see that she is not in danger."
Dany blinks, then turns her eyes to Marian, who had a frown crawling across her face. The frown quickly shaped into one that revealed that the mage turned god did not know if she could actually do something of that nature, but it was clear that she was willing. Marian turns her gaze to Dany and nods, "I'll give it a shot."
"Thank you, your grace," Tyrion bows
"Marian, take Lord Lannister to one of the antechambers and see what you can do."
Marian hops out of her chair and starts striding down the steps, "Got it! Let's go, Tyrion, we've got a wife to find and magic to experiment with!"
Tyrion follows after, having to put into practice the walk he had perfected over the years to keep up with the mage. It does not take the pair long to locate a free chamber, and the enter it. Tyrion looks about it, and with just a glance he can tell that what they have entered was once a pleasure chamber for one of the masters that lived in the pyramid, and that it has been converted into a storage room.
White sheets hang over ornate furniture and there are hints of red and black silk underneath the common cotton. Tyrion pulls the sheet off of one particularly tall piece and finds a ridiculously ornate chair that had obviously been made for the sake of someone's ego.
"ooh, good idea!" Marian notes, taking the sheet from him and with a quick application of magic, sticks it to the wall, "I'll see if I can find her and throw what I find up there."
"Can you do this?" Tyrion asks
"Of course!" Marian boasts, then adds, "I think. Gimme a minute to figure it out."
That said, she pulls herself onto a table and crosses her legs as she stares at the hung sheet. Tyrion climbs into the chair he uncovered and watches Marian as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. After a while, without opening her eyes, she tells him, "Describe your wife."
"She is young, seventeen or eighteen at this point, long red hair done in braids, pale skin, freckled," Tyrion thinks long about how else to describe Sansa, an image of the girl shaping in his head as he tries to think of what else to say. After a moment, he decides to add, "She never smiles, never frowns, her time in-"
"Got her!" Marian tells him, and his eyes spring to the hanging sheet.
There is an image on the sheet, one that spreads further and further out as he watches, almost as though it is flying towards something. Eventually it stops in a snow filled forest, and he can see Sansa and, if he was not mistaken, Theon Greyjoy. He did not know how that was possible, considering the Greyjoy was a prisoner of the Boltons.
The Boltons.
"Can you take us there? Or take her here?" Tyrion asks, springing from his chair
Marian's eyes open, and she looks down at him in confusion, "Why? You just wanted to see her, right? Make sure she's safe?"
"Oh she is far from safe," Tyrion tells her, then points at Theon, "That is Theon Greyjoy, a prisoner of the Boltons, who betrayed and slaughtered her family. I don't think she could be in any more danger than she is now."
Tyrion watches as Theon walks beside Sansa towards a young man with a scruff of black hair beside a weirwood tree. His frown grows more and more prominent as he watches, and then suddenly he can feel the cold. He can also hear the words, "Who comes here, before the old gods?"
He blinks, and turns to Marian, whose glowing blue eyes turn from him towards the dual columns of men leading to the massive tree. Tyrion turns around and the air behind him seems to be breaking apart, faded green seeing through unseen cracks in reality. His eyes return to Sansa and Theon, as well as Roose Bolton by the looks of the man, as Theon says, "Sansa, of House Stark, who comes here to be wed."
"Excuse me!" Tyrion finds himself calling out, as eyes turn and swords fly from scabbards, he adds, "She is already wed! To me, in fact!"
"Tyrion?" he can hear Sansa whisper in a mixture of hope and confusion
"Lord Lannister?" Roose Bolton barely reacts to his appearance, his legendary stoicism rearing its head, "And you brought a guest?"
"To my wedding," The scruffy boy growls, stepping up beside Roose.
"Careful, Ramsay, this is Tyrion Lannister we are speaking to."
"Aye, and another of his whores."
"I beg your pardon!?" Marian narrows her eyes, and they lock on Ramsay, "Would you dare to repeat that?"
"You heard me, who-"
"Ramsay!" Roose growls, silencing his son. Turning to Marian, he bows his head, "My lady, I do not think I've had the pleasure of learning your name?"
"Marian Hawke," She tells him and smirks when the Bolton men start sharing looks of fear
"The supposed god of the Targaryen girl?" Roose asks for clarification
"That's me," Marian agrees, giving him a toothy smile, and deciding not to deny the supposed god status that the world seemed intent on slapping her with.
"You don't look like a god to me," Ramsay snorts, "Just a girl in need of a little… love."
"And you'd love to be the one to give it, wouldn't you, kid," Marian rolls her eyes
"I would," Ramsay nods, "But I'll be fine loving your corpse."
A crossbow bolt flies from the Bolton men and spears through Marian's heart. The mage blinks, and looks down at the bolt, frowning at it, "What, again!?"
Tyrion takes a great deal of joy watching grown men shit themselves, and even greater joy when the ones shitting themselves take pleasure in flaying people alive. Really, so far he could see no downside to Marian proving yet again that she was far more powerful than anyone on the planet could kill.
Marian, for her part, just rolled her eyes and flung her armored hand forward as the other one yanked the bolt out of her chest. Lightning arched from her fingers and struck the man who fired the bolt at her. The man explodes in a shower of flaming bloody chunks of person.
Eyes travel from the spot the man had previously been to Marian and back several times before the mage declares, "Now then! We are here to pick up Lady Sansa. You will give her to us, or I will turn all of you into food for the local wildlife. Is that understood?"
"It is," Roose Bolton nods, and he turns to Theon and Sansa, who had been shuffled to the back of the crowd, "Lady Sansa, if you would please join your husband?"
The process of crossing through the Bolton men seems to take hours, though it is only a collection of a dozen or so steps. Each time her foot plants in the ground there is a deafening crunch of fresh snow being crushed. Each breath feels infinitely long and loud. But then she is next to Tyrion, holding his hand, and for just a moment everything feels right in the world.
But then she remembers that he is Tyrion Lannister, and everything crashes down again. She wonders what new horror awaits her, looking to the terrifying woman in armor for instruction. It is quick in coming, and Marian tells them, "Tyrion, take your wife back through the breach."
Tyrion nods, and he pulls Sansa through the broken air, and into the warmth of Meereen. The Lady Stark does not know how to handle the sudden change in temperature, and she breaths a great breath of awe and fear as she takes in her surroundings. She turns around and sees the snowy land of the North that she had just left, and she sees Marian stepping through the wall.
The God clenches her hand in a fist, and the image on the wall is shattered, sounding like a thousand shards of broken glass breaking into even smaller pieces. A friendly smile is sent her way and a hand extended, "Hi there! I'm Marian Hawke, nice to meet you!"