The Dragon and the Hawke 43
"Your Grace," Once more Hizdahr zo Loraq stands before the queen.
"Hizdahr, why have you come before me today?" the Empress asks, curious.
"I come to speak of my father, your Grace," Hizdahr tells her, "And ask what is to be done of him?"
"Has he not been enjoying my mercy?" is the return question. Drazik zo Loraq had been the man to arrange the attempted assassination during Marian and Missandei's wedding, and for his crimes he had been confined to his home rather than executed. Many had questioned her decision, but it had not actually been hers. She had allowed Marian to decide the punishment, and the mage had deemed house arrest a good option. Dany had been confused, but went along with it.
"He has, your grace, but my family has not," Hizdahr tells her, which merits a raised eyebrow, "Her holiness has cursed my father with terrible…. Release… your grace."
Dany turns to look at Marian with a frown and the mage shrugs, "So I gave him constant diarrhea, I was going easy on him."
"Indeed you were, your grace," Hizdahr agrees, and then swallows and breathes deeply through his nose, "Unfortunately my father has grown used to his condition and is now instead using it to torment me for my support of your cause."
"Oh," Marian frowns herself, "Want me to come up with something new?"
Hizdahr quickly shakes his head, "Please, your holiness, there is no need! I instead ask that he be moved, and perhaps instead sit in a cell next to Grasso zo Jorros."
"Wow, three months and you hate your dad?" Marian asks
"He has taken a most perverse pleasure in tormenting me," Hizdahr tells her, "I managed it for a month, but it has become too much."
"Very well," Dany tells her advisor, "We will remove your father from your home and place him in the cells. Know that you will not be able to remove him. Do you still wish for him to be imprisoned?"
Hizdahr nods, decisively, and is dismissed.
After he leaves Dany takes a deep breath and then levels the full might of her glare at Marian, who just shrugs unrepentantly. They have something of a stalemate between them but then Missandei tells her from behind the empress, "We will speak of this later."
Marian's eyes widen and dart to her wife's, who looks at her with the cool gaze of a practiced politician. The mage turned god swallows and nods her head meekly.
"Thank you, Missandei," Dany tells her friend, who smiles down at her and nods. The Empress then turns back to the end of the room and calls in the next supplicant. Thus the day, like most others, progress in this manner.
At the end, as the sun falls below the windows and the chamber darkens, the Empress and her advisors break from the throne room and each other to deal with personal matters. Dany and Daario set off to her chambers for a fun evening of frolicking, Barristan retired to his chambers to sleep, Tyrion and Sansa returned to their own chambers and fed Kevan while bickering about books they'd read, Grey Worm returned to the barracks to entertain his men with revelry, and the married goddess took her wife to their chambers so they could have a talk.
"Why did you do it?" was the first thing that Missandei asked, after they had stripped off their day's clothes and crawled into bed..
"Honestly?" Marian lays her head against her pillow and thought, blue eyes searching for an answer in the ceiling, "I thought it was funny."
Missandei lifts her head from Marian''s chest and raises an eyebrow, "I do not find it funny. It would have been better to end the man quickly, than leave him free to plot."
"But he wasn't free," Marian protests, "I had him stuck in his house."
"And how did you do that?" her wife asks
"Well I didn't actually curse him just with a bad case of the shits," Marian tells her, "He'd only have had to go badly on a normal basis if he'd stayed in his home. Instead, every time he tried to step outside, it would hit, and the longer he stayed out, the worse it would have been. He could easily have died from it if he didn't go home."
Missandei rests her chin on Marian's breast as she contemplates this new information, "I will let the matter drop for now. But do not do it again."
"Yes, ma'am," Marian smiles and kisses her wife, which leads to a rather enjoyable evening for the both of them.
Come morning, Marian and Missandei join Dany and the rest of the advisors in the dining room they'd been using for informal council meetings. They ate and talked about the various things that had peeked their fancy over the course of the twelve hours they had been separated, giggled, laughed, and proved that they were more than just colleagues. The communal breakfast had been instituted only recently, by Sansa of all people, who remembered her times in Winterfell when her family had been whole. Gatherings made in good mood were the best form of therapy she could find, now that she had time to let her grief out.
She knew her younger brothers lived thanks to Theon turned Reek, and she knew that Arya lived thanks to Brienne, so now she simply needed to find a good moment to talk to Marian and find out where they were. Given enough time, the surviving Starks would be reunited.
"Lady Lannister," the voice of Brienne, who had yet to fall into the comfortable nature of the breakfast, spoke into her ear, "There is a message here from… Stannis."
Sansa turns to look at Brienne, noting the dark tone that had slipped into her voice as she spoke the King's name. Shireen perks up on the other side of the table and asks, "What did my father send to you Sansa?"
"I don't know," Sansa tells the girl, taking the letter that Brienne held out to her. She breaks the seal and unfurls the scroll, reading quickly. After a few seconds her eyes widen and a massive smile spreads across her face.
"What? What is it?" Shireen asks, excitedly, as the rest of the table silently watches
"My brother Rickon is safe," the lady Lannister finally manages, licking her suddenly dry lips, "He and his guardian were hiding out with the Umbers, and they're on their way to Winterfell!"
"That's brilliant!" Tyrion smiles, "We should be there when he arrives."
Sansa turns her head to him, smiling, and then looks to Dany for confirmation. The Empress smiles and nod, to which Sansa thanks her profusely. Tyrion asks when the boy should arrive in Winterfell, and Sansa tells him, "A week."
"We'd best get packed for warm weather then," her husband tells her.
The breakfast is finished soon after that, in a much happier mood than it had been when it had started.