Missandei

Despite the sun on the banners that flew from every spire and tower, Missandei found herself rising before the selfsame sigil nearly every day. As it was in Essos, she thought. The Dornish were not unpleasant, exactly, but they were deeply proud in a way that mirrored the nobility of Slaver's Bay entirely too much for her liking. Thin skin and hot blood make for poor neighbors and poorer lovers. When word that she was Daenerys Targaryen's emissary got around the court, she heard little else than the same half-dozen stories of various Dornishmen repelling the Iron Throne's efforts to conquer them. The death of Rhaenys. Daeron, the Young Dragon. Aegon the Unworthy and his puppet-dragons. Lord Tyrell and the scorpions. Only a few had made the key realization that Missandei, and by extension, the queen, had nothing further from her mind than attempting a military conquest of Dorne. In a similar vein, Torgo Nudho got no shortage of dirty looks. Their hosts' first impression, no doubt, was a foreign soldier seasoned from campaigns across the water. In time, though, they began to see him as simply part of Missandei. A stateless bodyguard instead of an occupying presence. One who could not care less whether a dragon banner is ever flown from the Tower of the Sun. As it stood, the woman Ellaria Sand less ruled Dorne than led a household that happened to be the seat of House Martell. Never mind that the last Martells were killed by her and her daughters. That was no business of Missandei's, though, she was there only to warm the Dornish to the queen. At least I put them out of sorts. No doubt they were expecting someone altogether more martial. Perhaps a Dothraki, or even a Westerosi from outside Dorne. It only showed the Dornish mindset, that looking to take offense at any slight intended or otherwise. The child who sticks his hand in thorns just to brag he's bled. Such smallness as it was made Missandei sad. They did not enslave the commons below them and rarely bothered with affairs outside their borders, but the world was much larger than Dorne. Her eyes found Ellaria again, flirting with a woman wearing a purple sash dotted by little golden beads. Again, Missandei was reminded of the frills of the Masters' tokars. Silver, gold, pearl. There are masters the world over. The other women were either slowly getting more incensed, in Obara's case, at the pretentions of a man with an opal in his ear shaped like a perched vulture or batting her eyes at Torgo Nudho in Nymeria's. Tyene, the only daughter of Ellaria's body at court as far as Missandei understood, was absent. Sand, they call themselves, but those who live in Sunspear's shade and relax in the Water Gardens have no business living in a desert.

She excused herself, taking to wandering Sunspear's halls. The guards were no Unsullied, coupling in dark corners or else playing cyvasse, looking bored. Guarding what, exactly? And whom? Nobody paid her any mind, not the dragon queen's harmless Sothoryi pet, so Missandei went back to her room to wait for Torgo Nudho. If he can work himself free of Nymeria Sand without giving offense. Missandei had wanted to prompt him to come herself but she didn't want to get a wry response from the Sand Snake. Better to let him come when he can. Her room wasn't particularly finely furnished, if anything it appeared as though it had been almost looted when she first arrived at Sunspear. Her rooms at the Water Gardens had been the same way. Perhaps someone the Dornish were keen to forget occupied the space I do now. Missandei shivered, from unpleasant thoughts and the night air both. It was certainly warmer than Dragonstone had been, but even Sunspear had been subject to nights no Dornishperson had fit clothing for. There's nothing in Dorne that offers fur worth wearing, either, she thought. There is nowhere to hide from the wind outside city and castle walls. If winter reaches Dorne in earnest, there will be a real problem keeping warm. A peek out the window compounded her concern, watching people in the city streets below scurry from alley to alley. I wonder how proud the commons are to be Dornishmen alike with people like Ellaria Sand. A dead prince's paramour and milking it for all it's worth, and the Dornish lords all but let her. For now. She blinked in surprise when her eyes trailed downward to the sandstone outcropping directly below. A wilted orchid sat on a small piece of parchment folded neatly in the shape of a lion, nestled in a cranny to protect it from the wind. Impossible to spot unless you looked directly down from this particular window. A rush of excitement flushed though her despite her reserved nature and she somewhat sheepishly looked around to make sure no one was watching. Despite her best efforts a sudden cold gust blew the orchid off the paper lion, the dead flower sweeping off to the docks and the Summer Sea beyond. The sight captivated her until the orchid finally vanished into the night. At least I got the lion… she mused as she straightened up. To her astonishment she could see lines of ink through the lion's paper flesh and straightaway she got to unfolding it, tongue between her teeth so as not to tear it. The craftsmanship astonished her, as did the lion itself. Tyrion Lannister had made no little mention of the enmity between the Martells and the Dornishmen behind them and the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, yet here was a lion tucked away just below one of Sunspear's windows! The room's previous occupant? No wonder the room looked as it did. Who would the Lannisters be so foolish as to send into the arms of an enemy? An unwanted family member? Missandei frowned, already not possessed of the regard Westerosi had for the lions of the westerlands. Finally, the paper lion came unfolded and Missandei sat on her bed, taking in the words before her.

I can be certain that whoever finds this will be no Dornishperson. Much as I love my future people, they have a certain senselessness that leaves them blind and deaf to all save what fits them in the moment. Perhaps that's what has wedded them so to vengeance against any slight, real or perceived. I am always hopeful that my presence here and eventual marriage to Trystane will help turn a page, but I am not so naïve as to be heedless of the danger around me- particularly after Prince Oberyn's death. Should I die in Dorne, I would like whoever finds this to tell Prince Trystane I will love him always, to tell King Tommen I am ever his devoted servant, and to tell Ser Jaime Lannister I only wish I knew him better.

-Done in the hand of Princess Myrcella Baratheon

Missandei stared at the paper until her eyes hurt. They roved over the graceful letters, over the name. A name I know, she thought. I heard it back on Dragonstone. 'For Myrcella,' the crippled knight had said. Tyrion had been greatly saddened by news of her death as well. I suppose she was right to hide a testament somewhere. Obviously the Lannister brothers held Ellaria Sand to blame for the girl's untimely death, but had the princess herself seen it coming? Yet while Sand feasts and beds and acts so carelessly, a girl years dead is more alive than she. Often are the gentle and mild mistaken for unable, for unknowing. Carefully Missandei folded the parchment up, tucking it in the sole of her shoe. Dornish clothing left no other place to put it! She went back out into the hall amid thoughts each more troubling than the last.

"I didn't take you for a wanderer." An amiable voice called from further down the hall. Amity to hide the poison. She must not know any Naathi. Already weary of her new companion, Missandei turned to see Tyene Sand striding toward her.

"Hello, Tyene." she said.

"Shouldn't you be fending off Nymeria's attempts to steal your Summer Islander?"

"Torgo Nudho is not a Summer Islander. He considers himself Unsullied."

"And Nym considers herself Dornish. She's as much YiTish, though. Did you know that?"

"I thought it possible. Once in a great while, YiTish merchants paid the House of Nakloz visits to dispute with them over trade tariffs. They were not fond of the Ghiscari claiming to precede them to the written word." Missandei let a small smile form in the corner of her mouth. "Nor were they very amenable to the practice of slavery. One night, Master Kraznys got drunker than usual and inquired as to the price of a Lengii woman." Tyene Sand whistled.

"I bet the YiTish loved that."

"They stood to a one and left immediately, taking everything they'd brought with them. Saffron, jade…overnight their prices tripled. They tripled again when it became quite clear that the YiTish would not be returning under any circumstances. When it came out that Kraznys mo Nakloz was to blame for so offending Astapor's only source of precious stone and spices, the other Good Masters all but cut his house out of ruling the city."

"Nymeria acts the mysterious beauty when trying to catch a Dornishman, whispering all manner of nonsense in his ear about her mother's homeland. About the only bit I ever believed was how fond the YiTish are of the Lengii."

"That much was true. Once they were great enemies, or so the histories say, but now YiTish fleets patrol the waters around Leng without pause, hunting corsairs and slavers alike with unerring accuracy and astonishing ferocity. More than once I've heard the rumor that the YiTish patrols are guided somehow to those ships unwelcome in Lengii waters."

"Or, the YiTish know the waters well, better than any intruder." Tyene replied. Missandei shrugged.

"I've never been that far east; I can only say what I've heard."

"Do you know what I've heard? That Nymeria stopped in Naath while the Rhoynar were looking for a new homeland. It may be there is a drop or two -or three- of Rhoynish blood in common between you and House Martell." The idea was remarkably distasteful to Missandei. Yet an expression of inclusion. Yet again, given by a shameless snake.

On her return to the hall Missandei saw Torgo Nudho's face relax perceptibly, if only to her. He stood abruptly, cutting Nymeria Sand off before he made his way to Missandei, passing behind the columns rather than marching through the reveling Dornishmen.

"He looks as pleased to be here as you do." Tyene said wryly. A sound hit her ears then, one that drowned all else out. Missandei slowly turned her head away from Tyene Sand, mouth half-open. The Sand Snake and even Torgo Nudho were forgotten as Missandei again left the feast hall, finding herself on a balcony and staring at something truly unforgettable. The owl was white as a full moon, whiter, with blue eyes that pierced right through her. It hooted. That's no native bird. Tyene's approaching laughter behind Missandei did not get so much as a blink from the animal. The sound died abruptly when Tyene joined her on the balcony, watching the owl stare at them from its perch on a banner pole. Again, it hooted. Whether by chance or something else, white flurries began to feather down from the sky. The day's fading light made for a truly spectacular view, even as Missandei got a sharp shock from feeling the bits of white, pure cold, hit her skin. Her heart sank, a nameless dread forming in the pit of her stomach. Something is about to happen, she thought. Something Dorne could not be less ready for. Slowly, she reached the balcony's railing and peered down into the darkness, the streets far below hidden by the gathering dark of night. There was nothing to see.

"Missandei." Torgo Nudho called, his voice a steady base for her heart to beat to. She felt his hand take hers, unexpectedly forward from a man who stepped carefully around her. The owl gave a last hoot and soared off toward the ports. Missandei swallowed. It's happening now. Right now, and I can only brace for it.

"We need to go," she said. "We need to go someplace safe." "The Tower of the Sun is the safest place in Dorne." Tyene said, though she sounded unconvinced. Missandei paid her not the least bit of mind. "Torgo Nudho, you must wake the palace guards. We are under attack." she said, certain of it as she was uncertain of their enemy. His stony gaze did not reflect alarm, but she knew he trusted her, even more so when it came to danger.

"Then we will go to a place of safety, Missandei of Naath. Perhaps it is time we returned to the Queen. You've spoken your piece to everyone of importance in this land called Dorne, we are of no more use to her here." he said firmly, glad to be quit of cunning Snakes and proud Dornishmen. Missandei had a sentiment of agreement on the tip of her tongue when her every instinct told her to go back to the railing, to check again and make certain there was nothing there. She took a deep breath and pulled from Torgo Nudho, rushing to the railing and looking down bold as any Sand Snake.

The face that stared back was not a foot away. Eight huge blue eyes reflected her face better than any mirror. Two enormous fangs were frozen in a predatory grimace, the frontmost pair of legs raised alike, ready to pounce. Then the fangs clicked. Just as the face began to grow closer, she spotted Torgo Nudho's arm shoot out from the right, a purple blur fast in his grip. He buried in the creature's face soaking Missandei's fingers and front in frigid blood. A sound unlike any she'd ever heard, a high piercing hell-screech, filled the night. The creature wrenched itself free from the weapon and Missandei saw its eight-limbed body fall out of sight. Two. Five. Ten. Thirty, she counted uncomprehendingly as more of the same crept nimbly up the sandstone. On spotting her the lead creature gave a shriek, its fellows rushing on so much like a wolf pack.

"Run!" Torgo Nudho bellowed, pulling Missandei from the balcony. Her Naathi sense of calm, a boon in Daznak's pit, was no help now. The eyes, the fangs, the legs had done what no number of Sons of the Harpy could do, not truly. Echoing hoots and cries in answer from over the railing only spurred her on, until she was outstripping Torgo Nudho and Tyene Sand both. Get away, her instincts screamed. Get away from this place, get away from them. She dashed blindly past a swaying guard who smelled of red wine and burst into the hall, the faces a mixture of alarmed and confused. They cannot have missed the noise. Tell them, she screamed at herself. Instead nothing passed her lips but air. Instead another sound filled the room, one as like and yet maddeningly unlike the screeches as could be imagined. Like cracking stone, like cracking bone. But different. It was loud, unafraid, uncaring who heard. They no longer need the element of surprise. The sounds of battle joined below them and in the streets besides, the quiet night exploding into shouts, then into screams. It sounded like an entire host had stormed the city. The Tower of the Sun's occupants began pulling daggers out of waistbands and boots. Does it sound like we're being attacked by a typical army? There are no shouts of anger or commands. I hear nothing but dying Dornishmen. Fatted caterpillars munching mindlessly on the branch, heedless of the web woven around them. She heard countless feet quickly ascending the various staircases, heard the other two finally catch up. "Mama! We have to go!" Ellaria looked stunned at her daughter's antics.

"What-"

"Spiders! The size of hounds, the size of horses!" More screeching, a sort of piping hooting as they made their way up the tower's outside.

"Is there another way out of here? One inaccessible from the streets?" Missandei asked quickly.

"The only one we can reach from here is in the throne room." Nymeria Sand said, stretching out her whip.

"You can run. I'm not about to let the blood in Father's veins be chased out of Sunspear." Obara Sand said in turn, what few guards sober enough to stand gathering unsteadily at her side.

"Then stay and die." Missandei said, taking Torgo Nudho's hand and heading for the throne room.

The sight of the twin thrones, spear and sun, did little to inspire the Dornish. Immediately Nymeria dashed to one of the tapestries that hung innocuously next to a round window, pulling it aside and elbowing the bricks behind it to reveal a space between the throne room and the outer wall.

"It's not meant for a whole crowd at once…" she said, as if in realization.

"Go, then, Mama. Take the court, we will follow after." Tyene said.

"Not until all the rest have gone before. To do any less would shame your father's name." Ellaria replied, voice steely. Torgo Nudho had to give more than one sharp shove to get everyone down the hollow passage but to Missandei's surprise the throne room actually began to empty.

"Where does this lead?" she asked while the herding continued.

"A hidden harbor, out away from the city proper. There is always a ship there, of sound make and loyal crew, ready to take the fleeing Martells wherever they wish to go." There are no more Martells, Missandei thought. You killed the last. The last few Dornish lords disappeared into the wall. Out of the corner of her eye Missandei saw Ellaria Sand kiss her daughter on the forehead before sending her through the passage with Nymeria. Battle joined in the feast hall below, ending as quickly as it had begun. The hunt-packs had begun to climb the dome, evidently heedless of its smooth surface. Time is short and growing shorter. Her fear began to subside, the Naathi calm rising over it like the tide coming in over a sunken ship. Missandei took Torgo Nudho's hand.

"I suppose it will be war, then." she said, choosing her words carefully. "War, once we reach the Queen. She will force away the darkness that has come to grip this place." He nodded.

"No Naathi has ever won a war, Torgo Nudho." He frowned.

"I do not understand, Missandei of Naath."

"I can be of no further use, no further benefit to the Queen. Translators do no good in wars against enemies that speak no known tongue. I have no purpose, Torgo Nudho, no reason to reach her. You do." He got her meaning then.

"I would be a better soldier, Missandei of Naath, if I knew I had you to fight for." "You are the commander of the queen's Unsullied, her finest troops. There are no other Torgo Nudhos." She felt tears rise, trickling down her cheeks.

"She will find other Missandeis of Naath." He might have been a statue.

"I won't." he said finally. "Even if there are, I do not wish to look for them." His hands closed around hers, polished flat of calluses from years of holding a spear.

"Go. Every second is one fewer you have to put between yourself and the enemy." she told him. He quickly slipped an arm around her waist and brought his lips to hers. A knife can cut away only flesh. Then he was gone, disappearing into the gap as she'd instructed him. Then the bricks came together again, and the tapestry fell in front of it. Nothing more did Missandei want than to see the face of the man who had only seconds ago held her.

While Ellaria Sand started and gasped at the sounds of approaching footsteps, Missandei only closed her hands in front of her as if she stood next to the Queen in the Great Pyramid of Meereen. Chittering noises and the sounds of cracking sandstone were followed by great tumbling slabs, smashing into pieces against the marble floor. Missandei did not move, even as the great pale bodies began to pour through the holes in the dome, massing in its underside. She could hear Sand shuddering from revulsion, shivering from cold. Some are not so large as others. The smaller ones dart about so, the larger make no such haste, she thought detachedly.The doors, barred as they were, shook with the force put upon them until they simply flew off their frame. They slammed to the floor looking so much like a table-top, while several creatures even stooping stood taller than men trudged into the throne room. They bore greatclubs hewn from ice and wore strange white pelts Missandei did not recognize. They paid the pair no mind, looking around with sharp blue eyes, long noses sniffing warily. Their flesh was blue as well, the weak blue of a morning sky gone to cloud. One of them wore silvered splint, cracking its jaw at the sight of Missandei of Naath and Ellaria Sand. "I will not kneel." Sand said, voice wavering as she tried to project that famed Dornish resolve. The resulting bellow shook the glass in the room's round windows and made Sand shy backward.

"Kneeling would be beside the point, Ellaria Sand." Missandei said, the creature turning to peer at her. "I know the bearing of a sellsword when I see one. Even one so unusual as you." Another yell, a primal wordless cry. That Missandei neither jumped nor made a sound seemed to give it pause. A dismissive snort later and it was poking its head back in the hall, speaking a harsh unruly tongue. It came back in, holding its club head down as it stood by the door. People began to filter in, Dornish, and for a moment Missandei was unsure just what was going on. Then she saw their gaping wounds, their torn bodies, their missing heads. Their ice blue eyes. A darkness, the Queen named it, Missandei remembered. From the furthest north. Two beings as unlike the lanky sellswords as the sellswords were from Missandei came in next. One was armored in what looked like glass to a Naathi, yet from the northerners' talk on Dragonstone she knew it for ice. He, it could only have been a he, had long hair bound up out of his eyes and held a spear that bore the still-snapping head of Obara Sand, one blue eye open and staring. The other was female and even slighter of build than Daenerys Targaryen, yet in the prime of womanhood for her kind for all that. Countless tiny spiders poured from her sleeves, her nape, from under her hem. Perhaps it was because she had so recently spoken of Yi Ti at length, but Missandei saw something both impossible and undeniable. "You have the Furthest East in you, of that I'm certain. How, I cannot say." The spiders never stopped, from her person nor from the ceiling. While her companion only looked at Missandei as a boil to be lanced, the spider-bearer looked at her as a delicacy yet untasted. She came closer. Missandei could feel frost harden on her skin, chip against her lips. What passed full white pair before her were not words so much as sounds of the world, ones she had never heard. Sounds one might, if only they went north far enough. "If I am meant to understand, I must disappoint you."

"She asks, 'what are you?'"

The voice was so rapt, the response so quick that for a moment Missandei thought the creature herself had spoken. On looking around, she could only see Ellaria cowering behind the spear throne.

"Pray tell, what are you to speak without a mouth?" she asked, paying no great regard to a person with which she could not speak anyway.

"The same that breathes without lungs, that blows without lips." A chill breeze blew against Missandei's neck. Short, she thought.

"I've never spoken to the wind before."

"A great many things have happened of late that have never happened before. Least of all speaking wind."

"Or walking dead."

"As it happens, the dead have walked ever since there were icy wills to move them. Hardly new."

"I have never known the wind to be so glib." More speech from the spider-bearer.

"She asks again."

"I am an interpreter myself, in truth. I would be glad to answer if I knew who was so relaying my words." A laugh, cold and careless.

"There is no interpretation of the True Tongue. What is said is what is meant. Truth is all that can be relayed." The snow that drifted from the ceiling past the pack began to spin and dance, plaything of the wind or whatever power gave it voice. Missandei saw something shape itself from the tumbling snow, first a head and then a body beneath it. But for the emptiness of it, the etherealness of it, it might have been mistaken for one of the walking dead. Wide blue eyes stared unblinkingly out from a beautiful face gone to ruin, frost gathering at the lips and nostrils. A frozen last breath. Cheekbones were visible beneath the peeling frostbitten skin and what remained of blonde hair turned to brittle white webbing the further from the skull it got. A girl, Missandei realized, with a dead orchid in her hair.

"I don't suppose you'd answer the selfsame question yourself if I asked." The arms came up, as transparent as the rest of her.

"Freely, to the best of my knowledge. Unfortunately for the both of us, I don't have the first notion. I know only I can ride the breeze easier than any man ever rode a horse, that any weapon, from stone to steel, will no more harm me than grant me life anew, and that I have a single person to thank for the loss of the one I had." Her head turned, long hair blowing on a breeze Missandei did not feel, toward the thrones. In an instant she was behind them, Ellaria squirming in her iron grip. "I cannot favor you with the warmth you once showed me. Allow me to repay you in coin of another kind." The wind-thing said, putting her lifeless mouth to her captive's. At once Missandei hear the churning of insides turned to ice, heard the cracking of bone as splinters of limb and rib ripped free of skin. What remained of Ellaria Sand lay prostate for only a moment before it began to move about, scuttling on broken limbs. The eyes had burst, yet Missandei knew if they had not, they would sear bright icy blue.

Speech from the spider-bearer made Missandei tear her eyes from the wind-thing and its new-made thrall.

"She asks once more."

"Tell her I am Missandei of Naath." Cold wind blew over her shoulder, but she could hear the meaning in it. Speech. Another smattering of cracking ice in reply.

"You are a long way from your birthplace."

"As are you." The wind-thing duly translated. This time the spider-bearer laughed; a sound as beautiful as it was terrifying.

"Further than you know." The wind-thing did not need to add inflection for Missandei to know its accomplice was greatly amused.

"Why have you brought war here?"

"Actually, I can answer that. Dorne is known as the Empty Land in the True Tongue, and to be honest there has never been a better name for anything, ever. You're no Dornishwoman but you've spent no fewer than a few months here. You know of what I speak. It is all pride and poison."

"What is that to them?" Missandei asked, pointing to the bearer.

"Nothing. They don't care a whit about this race or that, this house or that one."

"Then why have they come here? Why now?"

"There are greater aims than the stomping out of a few snakes, to be sure, but I wasn't about to let another do my stomping for me. Even one so…footy as the Weaver." The wind-thing took in the sight of the thrones for a long time before she appeared sitting primly in the spear-seat. "Dorne. If there were something in it worth keeping, I would not have come. Whilst here I endured no few threats, first veiled and then blatant even though I sought only to bind up the wounds it suffered in the past. A different princess's ghost spurred Prince Oberyn to seek vengeance on Ser Gregor, and yet after the wheel had run the lot of us over beneath it, I'm the one left to haunt these halls. A Lannister. How did that come to pass, I wonder? I suppose it doesn't matter. Dorne did not want me for a brief few decades, so it can have me forever. I will make Dorne the Empty Land for true." Missandei heard clicking behind her, heard the drip of something hit the throne room's marble floor. "Goodbye, Missandei of Naath." Myrcella Baratheon said indifferently as Missandei beheld the Weaver's waifish form melting away, an eight-legged abdomen taking the place of her slender legs and clicking fangs her pretty mouth. Before Missandei could think on Torgo Nudho, she felt twin daggers sink into her chest and watched her eyes go wide in the Weaver's thousand own.