Missandei

The slavers had taken great care not to kill when they raided Naath, as every corpse they left was coin left lying on the ground as well. Her village was put to the torch to further cut them away from their homeland, erasing their place there as they were led out to the beach. The white sand had been a thing to see, warm and forming to the bottom of five-year-old Missandei's feet. She remembered being hurried along, the slavers eager to be quit of Naath once their business there was ended. Fearful of butterfly fever. A single fluttering black-and-white creature was enough to get the grown men, armed and seasoned, fleeing to the other side of the captive column. It is no fault of theirs, Missandei remembered thinking, the butterfly bobbing about innocently. They cannot help what they are. The little boat, the bigger boat, and life had gone on until one day in the Plaza of Punishment when the silver-haired visitor revealed she spoke Valyrian. The first person who spoke to me as if I were a living, thinking being, same as her, since I was taken. Daenerys Targaryen had suggested she might return to Naath if the notion was one she liked, but Missandei could not remember the name of her village and besides, her family had not survived the raid. The Naath I belonged to burned that night. Daenerys had become my purpose, my place of being. Then Her Grace had asked her why a thirsty man would choose death over water. I told her there were no masters in the grave. The Daenerys in her mind grew even more petite, her deep blue dress losing its solid color and going all manner of blue, grey, white, black. Behind her, the hateful wind-thing that had once been Myrcella Baratheon sat in the throne that had once been the Prince of Dorne's while Ellaria Sand's corpse skittered about on broken limbs. Missandei could hear also the mindlessly animate head of Obara Sand stuck on a spear, clacking away with dead teeth. The petite form receded- no, something else had burst from it, the fair dainty form a veneer only. One that when stripped away, revealed the perfect creature to kill a butterfly. The Weaver's body had moved on eight legs, her lithe arms reaching out hungrily for Missandei. Her gentle face had given way to countless staring eyes and below them, great clicking fangs that dripped something clear and cold. Had I known such a being such as you existed, I would not have spoken so. Then the fangs caught her squarely in the chest, cold sharp daggers full of frigid hunger.

A sound like glass shattering made her conscious of the world, returned her to the waking land. The cold that had so chilled her was gone. When she tried to move, to rise, she found that she could not. Her limbs would not respond and besides, she was bound up neatly in something white and sticky. The cracking sound did not abate, nor the gentle whisper of a breeze that made Missandei sway in her cocoon. An empty scouring wind blew in reply, dry as it was cold. Myrcella spoke to me in the Common Tongue and to the Weaver in something else. If only she understood! Something told her the language the wind-thing had mentioned, the True Tongue, was not one spoken by anyone in the known world. A sharp, hoarse grunt cut through the blowing winds, a third tongue. One infinitely more fitting to a mortal mouth. As to the speaker, perhaps the sellsword officer. Whatever he is. The dry wind changed to accommodate him, Missandei could hear harsh, guttural words. Perhaps no mortal race can speak the True Tongue, she wondered, if Myrcella must relay the Weaver's words to the cream of her own troop. She could not help but feel sullen with herself. Nineteen languages I learned, nineteen, and here words are being had in two I never have! A sudden odd wooziness took her, first subtle then overbearing. I'm upside down, she realized, and it's taken me this long to realize it. Perhaps it was the numbing cold, or whatever had dripped from the Weaver's fangs. She felt her toes wriggle, her fingers twitch. Perhaps in time the rest of me will follow suit. All the while the conversation far beneath her continued in its unhurried, even uninterested tone. Myrcella cannot scour Dorne of life from the Tower of the Sun, she must leave it at some point. As for the Weaver and the rest, they were no less flesh and blood than Missandei. All living things must eat, even Others, and the jagged backward teeth that sit in their sellsword's mouth are not for eating snow. Once they leave, I'll try and free myself. Other voices came and went, the stony grunts of sellswords and the unearthly True Tongue from what she supposed must be still more Others. Her hopes of remaining undiscovered sank. Or maybe I'll stay put a bit longer. Only when all sound below finally quieted did Missandei bestir herself, or try to, stiffly wriggling in the silk without impediment from the material, to her surprise. Maybe it numbs instead of sticks. Finally, she felt her hand break through the bottom of her prison, tearing away to create a means of exit. All this she did quietly, stopping every so often to listen for a voice until she freed her head. I needn't have bothered, she mused on glimpsing the floor below. There's nobody here. The Tower of the Sun's throne room had become quite a ruin, webs here, there and everywhere amidst the rubble. Missandei saw she was indeed hanging from the broken dome, her silken binding one of several. There was no hint of movement from the others, so she soon disregarded them and looked to the floor. How to get down. Then the problem of what to do once she'd gotten her head back above her feet popped up in her mind. I suppose the only way out is behind the tapestry. No doubt the Others have the rest of Sunspear well in hand. Slowly she wriggled down, out, her hands gripping the wrapping's sticky sides. Slowly it began to stretch and unravel, Missandei's efforts slowly closing the distance between her and solid ground. Just when she thought she was managing quite neatly, there was a loud ripping sound and the silk sagged on one side. Oh no. She quickly pulled her feet free and fell the last ten feet, surprising herself when she landed on all fours with little discomfort. Her relief died as it was born when she got a look at the hands holding her up, the toes poking out from under her ruined dress.

Missandei's fingers were withered, graying, bony things, the spaces between her thumbs and fingers thin like a bat's wings. Her fingers had lost their nails, as had her toes. Then her reflection came into focus in the ice on the floor. Her skull shone through the skin of her face, her teeth visible behind what were once her lips. Once, Daenerys had taken great pride in aiding Missandei with her hair, particularly when they learned Torgo Nudho was taken with her. I have no need of aiding now. I have no hair to need aid with. The rest of her was ruin as well, numb and stiff with no trace of life's warmth. For a terrible moment she wondered if she were dead, then she felt a faint stirring in her chest. Slow, she thought, after counting no more than a half-dozen beats in a minute. Far too slow. She made for the tapestry in a daze, still staring at her hands, every so often glancing at the floor to make sure she had not been seeing things. Yet for all this, it does not hurt. Missandei supposed there were worse fates. My life remains to me, my mind is still my own. She could not say the same for the Sands, those who had stayed in typical Dornish defiance. Then she remembered there had been another in the room when the Weaver had tasted her flesh. A dragging sound issued from behind the spear-inlaid throne and Ellaria Sand's creeping corpse emerged, mindlessly crawling along as best its twisted broken limbs could manage. It made no sign of seeing Missandei. How could she? Her eyes have burst form her face. The sight of the wretched thing made her feel dreadfully cold inside, making her realize the cold without had quite ceased to bother her. Valar Morghulis, it is said in Essos. All men must die. Valar Dohaeris, too. All men must serve. These Others make one the other. She left the crawling corpse where it wallowed, pulling up the tapestry to find that the secret way behind it had yet to collapse. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. House Martell's words, words that bespoke well that fiery Dornish pride-vanity. Undone, Missandei amended. The tapestry slid back over the gap in the wall and she was plunged into darkness. The way was tight and curving, a steep spiral that Missandei knew was taking her to the base of Sunspear, if not lower. Once she reached level ground and the passage opened up, she found brass braziers flanking the way's exit, the fires that once burned within given way to smoldering ash. Not so long since people came this way, then. The possibility of Torgo Nudho's escape made even the sputtering embers seem brighter. She moved on, out into the dim sandstone chamber. It seems the Martells have had need to flee Sunspear enough times to warrant such clandestine measures. Thinking on Dorne's once-rulers kept her mind off her predicament and so she kept on it as she left the base of the spiral stair behind. Ellaria said there was a harbor at passage's end. If they made it that far, there will be no ship for me to escape on. She kept going, more braziers keeping the way lit well enough not to walk into a wall or trip on a mislaid brick. Not that there are any. More than well built, this passage is well maintained. Missandei couldn't help but frown. I might have guessed. The rich had their own bolt holes out of the cities of Slaver's Bay, same as the common bricklayers and the street sweepers. She tasted salt on the air and heard the faint lapping of waves. Water that's yet to freeze. Let this be a good omen.

The chamber gave way to a natural sandstone cavern, one Missandei could see opened up into the sea proper. I must be at cliff's base, directly below Sunspear and the city both. Brick became board beneath her feet, a sleek narrow pier that stuck out over the water that filled the cavern's front. Despite its proximity to the passage behind her, Missandei could see no trace the water had ever risen high enough to touch the bricks. Wine savored but never swallowed. There was no boat, at least none she could see, so Missandei walked out to dock's edge. Still at least fifty feet from cave's mouth, and I haven't time to fret about how to proceed. The Sands would never have told Myrcella about the passage, but she stuck me as passing clever, inevitably she'll come upon it. I just hope her business elsewhere keeps her, and when she makes her return, I'm well on my way. But on my way where? She lowered herself into the water, wading away from the dock and toward the opening in the cliff face. I can worry about that later. That I live is victory enough. A sudden glint in the rocks cresting around the edges of the cavern mouth caught her attention, something small but easily catching what sunlight there was outside to catch. Something shiny. Something purple. An excitement quite unlike her carried her the rest of the way, swimming without feeling herself tire until she'd reached the rocks. Carefully she reached into them, knowing well how sharp dragonglass could be. When her fingers touched it she gave a small gasp, gently plucking the shard from between the sandstone juts. Torgo Nudho made it this far at least, she thought. Cloth from his tunic was wrapped about the rounded bottom still, to make a safe end by which to hold it. Only when she left the darkness of the cave did she look at it, the purple glass darker than any amethyst. Purer, too. Then she blinked. In the leather wraparound, she could see the Valyrian glyph that represented the word 'grey'. The making of the glyph was not so precise as with a proper writing tool and in the dark red of blood, but Missandei knew well what she was looking at. I taught him how to write his name myself. Clutching a rock, she turned the shard over half-expecting to see 'worm' finger-drawn on the other side. To her surprise, it was blank and there was no trace that he had tried to finish. It isn't because he was killed, she told herself. He hid it in the rocks for me to spot on my way out. How he supposed I'd come that way, how I might live past our parting, I will never know. Perhaps I'll ask him when I see him.

Bobbing from one rock to the next, Missandei made her way about the cliff's bottom. The waters were rough and choppy, but it was not so hard as she might have guessed- there were parts where she all but left the water and scrabbled forth between outcroppings on foot. A bigger rock took more time to tackle, she had to hug it and edge right to stop the current and the waves from dragging back the way she'd come. When Missandei made it around and she beheld Sunspear's port, Torgo Nudho was driven wholly from her mind. A huge white piece of ice floated dauntingly in the small bay, shaped as to be a ship of sorts save that it lacked any kind of sails. More ships lay in a proper shambles on the shore, hulks and derelicts run aground with figures shuffling listlessly from them. That will prevent a relief landing, she thought numbly. The hulks have rendered Sunspear's shores and docks both a mess of rotting wood and briny flotsam. Not to mention both are likely full of dead men. That she could hear no screaming was in Missandei's mind almost worse than the sounds of massacre. I will make Dorne the Empty Land for true. The wind-thing's unblinking stare had been void of pity, empty of anything resembling compassion. Death will do that, I suppose. I can't imagine she has much more to exist for than to haunt the Dornish and hound them to the bitter end. The obstacle of the huge white ship quite confounded Missandei as to how a ship could have left the area without being spotted. Unless they were. She left that thought as quickly as she had it. Or they made off before the flagship took up its position. I can't very well swim all around the bay to avoid it at any rate and nothing's getting done just bobbing here. She stayed as close to the rocks as she could manage, watching closely for any movement on the shore proper. Ah, there they are. A half-dozen lank brutes loitered on the beach, picking through the hulks as they would for whatever might take their fancy. One of them had his eyes on the city proper, up away from the beach, but a sharp bark from another individual, seated and picking its teeth with a bone, brought it sulking back to its fellows. They're certainly not close-mouthed, Missandei thought as the lot of them kept up a steady flow of grunts and more hard stony words. Nor were they especially vigilant, more focused on grabbing from the wrecked ships or stuffing something from the waterline in their mouths. Sellswords left to wait for orders. No doubt they'd rather join in the looting of Sunspear for whatever might draw them. Closer still Missandei could see their long swarthy faces, the noses that stuck out so dramatically twitching nonstop. As chance would have it one of them turned and looked right at her, making her heart skip one of its few beats. The being gave no outcry, it didn't even blink. Then it yawned, showing off a mouthful of cruel teeth, before turning back to its fellows. Not one to shrug off fortune as it might come, Missandei foundered in the surf for a bit before finding her feet, walking slowly up the beach, looking to the brutes as often as she dared. How could he have missed me?

Only when the one with the bone toothpick looked up, not at her but where she had been, did Missandei realize her error. No one could miss footsteps in the sand. As soon as the thought crossed her mind the creature bellowed in alarm, on its feet in a flash. It went over to the hulks, ripped off a sharp bit of wood as a makeshift jabbing weapon and dashed madly for the tracks in the sand. It will be a short pursuit, Missandei thought quickly, before scaling the side of a moss-covered boulder, one set in place who knew when to shelter the docks proper. She thanked whoever might have set the line of stones in place in antiquity, reaching the top just as the brutish creatures reached the boulder's base. They got to looking around, eyes in hunters' squints, noses twitching most ably. Then the toothpicker started swinging out as it would, this way and that, throwing sand and bellowing. It thinks something is near, trying to catch it with blind swings, smell it, catch it in a shower of sand or else startle it into moving and leaving more tracks. More than once one of them glanced up, utterly without a reason to spot Missandei that she could see, and simply looked right past her. Your superior saw me clear as day in the Tower of the Sun. Why can't you? It was only a matter of time before the racket they were making drew such a superior's eyes though, or worse. Missandei left them to their worsening argument, losing sight of them as fists started to fly. I suppose nobody will think to find a survivor at the site of so heavy a landing. The Sands hadn't seen fit to show her Sunspear at ground level, as the common-born of the city saw it, but even if the notion had come to mind it was likely to be dismissed out of hand. Ellaria was no commoner. An Uller bastard, her daughters the get of a prince. She never knew what it was to go without. Missandei wondered if anywhere else in Westeros had fallen to a sudden attack as Sunspear had. With commoners as doomed as here, while the highborn hid behind stone walls. The city proper had gone silent, covered in a healthy layer of snow which further complicated the situation. I'll have to go through buildings to keep my tracks better hidden. The orange roofs and dun bricks of the shadow city as well as Sunspear proper so looked queer blanketed with snow and void of sound nor living thing, but that only made Missandei's winding progress through windows and cellar doors quicker. I would think to find the enemy at least, making sure the city is secure. Perhaps the Others figure the cold is enough, the snows well fixed to bury any Dornish dead- unless they plan on having them march west on their countrymen. The smell of blood wafted in a dizzying miasma from a large stables just outside the innermost of the Weeping Walls, making Missandei halt and search for a window to peek through. Once found, she beheld a mass of dead horses either piled about or hanging from the rafters, yet another brute tossing a few over its narrow shoulder. At first she thought the monster just fat, then she spotted the bosom bound in hide, the stringy hair that hung down about its face rather than cropped short, the rounded swell of its midsection. Nothing comes from nothing, she thought. The female was broader and taller by a head than her male counterparts, and from what Missandei could see, markedly heavier. She was more than just slinging the carcasses around, she was divvying them up, occasionally moving one from one pile to another to satisfy some rationale Missandei could not imagine. Then she saw the she-brute's teeth, sharp jagged cones that pointed backward in her mouth. Teeth meant for trapping, for snapping shut and swallowing whenever they find purchase. Small wonder they let the brutes have all the horseflesh they can catch. The Others have their spiders, faster, stronger and smarter than any horse.

Rather than attempt to sneak through the abattoir, she slowly went around. Occasionally the monster within gave a grunt or murmured something in the Old Tongue, answered by a number of high reedy voices. All the better I went around, Missandei thought. As if to catch her out, fresh snow began to fall. I feel no cold, and now my tracks may well be better hidden. The rest of her journey through the shadow city was blessedly uneventful, seeing no one else living, dead, or otherwise. Indeed, the dead men must have been sent off to raise havoc in the rest of Dorne. They're useless as household retainers or workers, why let them stand idle? Rather than more brutes, she spotted a single milk-white figure standing atop the Weeping Wall, gazing east. The Weaver's beautiful captain. Then again, if all Others are beautiful, are any? He had seen fit to discard Obara's head, his spear free to gouge and gore as it would. What Missandei could see of his face advertised an unhurried but razor-honed instinct, a sort of disciplined wariness. The emptiness may remind him of home. Perhaps he does not want to fall into complacency. Torgo Nudho and the other Unsullied officers spent silent watches in a similar fashion. The Sons of the Harpy taught them well the difference between peace and quiet. She shook herself, trying again to focus on the trial before her and not on Torgo Nudho. First, I have to make it outside the walls. Then I have to get quit of Sunspear without him spotting me in the wide openness of the desert surrounding the city. She made first for the mouth of the Threefold Gate, the beginning of the path from city's edge to the castle proper, but on spotting several large webs strewn about the sandstone columns and yet another Other raising corpses as he found them and sending them through the gate, Missandei resolved to take the road less travelled. I'm sure one of these hovels or winesinks has a secret way under the wall. A friend to smugglers, or at least one ready to profit off their efforts. Reprieve came in the form of a sagging pillow house. Under a crate behind the counter, she found a hole that let out into a storage room. One full of wines and rather exotic garb that had likely been skimmed off a much larger more impressive fortune, the smugglers' cut that the Martells had never missed. When gold flows like water, one doesn't look for missing coppers. There was a low tunnel out of the room, dug straight through the sand that held the city up, bricked clumsily in uneven chunks of sandstone. There might be a dozen of passages much like this one all about the shadow city. Perhaps lain when the dragons came the first time, in case the people wanted to flee the dragonfire. Again in darkness, Missandei had to feel her way through the tunnel, trying not to trip on a random risen brick. Walking down the pitch-black corridor was like walking into the past, things long since done springing to mind. I wonder if the Sons of the Harpy used such means to walk here and there throughout Meereen without being noticed. We would never have become aware of them. No doubt such a trick was how they caught Ser Barristan out. The old knight had meant well and only wanted the best for Daenerys the queen, but in Missandei's heart she doubted whether he could separate her from Daenerys the woman. Different prospects entirely, and Her Grace was of a mind to completely ignore the latter in her marriage to Hizdahr zo Loraq for the sake of the city's peace. Certainly, she cared more for the Meerenese lowborn than their own nobility ever had. Yet they resented her for taking the consolation of being higher than slaves away.

There was no sound from above, though whether that was from a lack of movement topside or her being too deep to hear, Missandei had no notion. Others make no sound when moving anyway, but I might hear their monsters snarling at each other or tossing rubble around. Abruptly the ground beneath her began to rise, leading her back toward the surface. Then she cracked her head on the ceiling, barely catching herself from tumbling back down the way she'd come. Managing to withhold her gasp of pain, she gingerly rubbed her head and felt for the upward tunnel's ceiling. They purposefully did not dig the way up cleanly. Perhaps that was a measure to deter pursuers who had found the tunnel. The poetry of it made Missandei huff humorlessly. Perhaps I'll make it further yet. Safe for the moment down where the rays of House Martell's sun never shine. Going forward she used her hand to feel for another sharp drop in the height of the tunnel so as not to knock herself unconscious. After having to squeeze through two more, the last flat on her belly, Missandei rolled onto her back to behold the gray-white sky. Oh, more snow. She was in a shallow hole, no more than three feet deep and narrow like a grave. Snow already fallen came up to her elbows, but she was past being discomfited by white flakes and carefully made to turn herself around without rising so that she might behold Sunspear from afar. Evidently no one (or thing) had gotten wise to her escape, no dead men poured out from the gates, there were no spiders skittering down from the walls. Then she looked above the walls. The great dome had collapsed but for a single section, curving over the hall. To Missandei, it looked like a great crescent. She gave another humorless chuckle. Call it Moonspire now, topped by the Tower of the Moon. Turning away from the ruined city, she saw that her escape had taken her east, the hole itself hidden in a dull pile of rocks sticking out of the sand that shared its yellowish color. There were countless tracks heading still further east in the sand, a numberless plodding horde sent to sweep Dorne sure as a broom across the floor. The last place they'd look for an enemy is behind their wall of dead. Besides, the sands shift and the snows fall without respite, so I'd not leave tracks anyone could easily follow. She shook away the snow, crept out of the hole, and with a last glimpse at the bowed, bent, broken former jewel of Dorne, began to walk east. There was nobody to harry her, no cawing of birds or calls of animals. There was no sign that anything at all lived but Missandei. What if I'm all that remains? That stopped her where she stood. What if Myrcella and the Weaver are just what I've seen? The Others may well have saved Dorne for last, and reduced the rest of Westeros to a wintery waste fit only for beings native to whatever cold darkness they hail from? Her eyes went wide. For a moment she was at an utter loss, unable to determine what would be the best course going forward. Then she swallowed and took a breath, trying to regain her Naathi composure. If it's indeed come to that, no harm in going a little further. If only just to go. If it hasn't, then every step and second counts. She resumed walking, trying not to draw attention to herself. When the silence got to be too much she broke into a run, managing the dunes and drifts as best she could. Even if there is no life left in Dorne, even if there is no life left in the world at large, there is life yet left in me.

The sky didn't change as the hours wore on, the same whirling white no matter which direction Missandei looked. There was no way to tell when in the day she was without the sun to go by, but she figured night would come regardless and by such means did two days pass in Missandei's estimation, resting when she had to. Snow became water when held and breathed on and so the desert had ceased to be one in truth, but there was nothing to be seen what might be edible. The prospect of starving did not so scare Missandei of Naath as it did rich men who had never missed a meal in all their lives, but it was neither one she cared to entertain further than necessary. I suppose I could always go back the way I came and give the Weaver another attempt. Then she glimpsed the line of white. At once she was on her belly again, creeping up a dune to peek over the sand. Another ice-ship floated in the bay to the south, occasionally discharging some type of projectile from one of the two great holes on each side with the floating town at the mouth of the Greenblood as its target. More hulks lay wrecked all along the shoreline, dead men tumbling and spilling out to follow the river inland. Poleboats were already headed that way, those she supposed that had gotten off as soon as the Others' watercraft had appeared. Although it was apparent the boats were well within range of the ship's attacks, it was solely focused on destroying the town before it. Perhaps each shot is too dear to waste on a single boat, or it's just the Others being Others. Destroy population centers and let the winds, the snows, the wights sort out what survivors there may be. There was no point in heading down to the ruin the town had become, so Missandei crept down from the dune and continued east, sticking as close to the river without revealing herself. How queer that one among a people who kills nothing survives the wroth of a race that kills everything. There was nobody coming down the dunes, nobody for any wights to chase, so Missandei didn't worry about dead men coming to look for landbound survivors of the floating town's destruction. The Planky Town, they called it, Missandei remembered. The thought of the fleeing boats spurred her on, the prospect of survivors carrot enough to get her running again. The tracks of the dead men persisted as well, the sand a great mess of scuffs and footprints lined with snow. Those who'd landed with the Weaver at Sunspear, still ahead. Then again, they didn't have to stop and sleep when they came this far.

Missandei remembered the Painted Table on Dragonstone, but the maps she'd found of Dorne in Sunspear did more than show the region's coastline and mountains. The houses took greater precedence than the land's features and each house had its own holdings outlined in fitting colors. And where I'm standing was red and black, a golden hand some distance still east. Godsgrace, the seat of House Allyrion. The first castle the dead men will find, the first place there will be enough people worth stopping to kill. She would never catch them on foot, not when she had to rest and they did not, but then she too remembered the boats that were fleeing the destruction of the Planky Town. A dead man is tireless but slow. Surely a boat could make its way up the Greenblood faster than the fastest walking corpse. She looked for the best place to head over the dunes and make for the river's edge, fearful of missing the last possible fleeing boat. At a gap between the drifts she found what she sought, ready to leap into the freezing water if she must to avoid being mobbed by the dead. The river was slow but not yet frozen over and there were boats to be waved down approaching the bend on which she stood. Assuming they don't catch sight of me and row on, taking me for a wight. One of the poleboats was in a particularly sorry state, more a rowboat and sagging into the river at that. Even if they stopped, I don't know if their boat could hold another person. Then she saw the boat was occupied by a single person, a struggling girl leaning on an oar too big for her. Older than a child, younger than a woman. The hiss-whisper that escaped Missandei made the girl look up, eyes wide and wary. They went wider still at the sight on the sand, mouth gaping as she tried futilely to push the boat onward and keep it from shoring itself. When it did, the girl's pushing against the current and the current itself driving her boat onto the shore, she dropped the pole and picked up a spare plank, swinging it like a cudgel. Careful! Missandei thought, the girl's swings wide and panicked, succeeding only in taking her off-balance and sending her backward into the freezing river. At once Missandei waded around the ruined boat, pulling the girl up and onto land. Though she was no less soaked, she felt no cold. I wonder if this will last until the end of my days. The girl did not share her acquaintance with the Weaver though, and what breaths she took were punctuated by chattering teeth and audible shivering.

"Get up." Missandei said. "You need to stand, to move. You have to keep the cold away." I can barely hear myself. The girl's lips were turning blue and it became quickly apparent her life was in Missandei's hands. I am not strong enough to carry her, along the shores or out to a boat. Nor would saving her now save her from the dead men later. Still, she persevered, even pulling off the tatters of her dress to tie tight around the girl. It's not like I need them, she noted tersely. They weren't keeping the cold out and I feel it not, anyhow.

The boat was barely floating, let alone fit to carry two people up the Greenblood to Godsgrace, but it could keep them out of dead hands for now. Missandei tucked the girl as snugly as she could in the driest corner, pushing off with the boat's pole and hefting it as best she could to power them on. It's height she needed, not strength, Missandei discovered, as longer arms gave her much purchase with how the pole went into the water. Even so, stronger arms than mine would put my paltry efforts to shame. Or maybe it's just the fact that I can feel the water creeping up my toes even now. Night would surely put an end to the girl, rags or no, so Missandei kept on as fast as she dared, praying that the boat would not come apart beneath them. A shout loud to Missandei's ears as a dragon's roar made her turn in bewilderment, the sight of a poleboat proper swiftly coming up on her right enough to make her want to weep in joy. Or would, had I tears to weep in this withered head of mine. When they came up boat-to-boat she saw they were people of a like coloring to the girl. Either they were concerned with pursuers or busy with their own hasty labors but it was only then that they seemed to spot Missandei, a panicked outcry breaking out. She pointed to the girl, then to the other boat. An old man and his wife, and who must be their son and his. Perhaps their own children are inside the little hut on the back of their boat. Quickly the man left his aghast parents and peered into the shambles that remained of the craft Missandei stood in, snatching the girl up and getting a cry of surprise from his wife. She quickly took her in hand, carrying her inside. Well now, at least she'll have a chance, Missandei thought, ignoring the water closing over the tops of her toes. They stared at her, the family of Dornish smallfolk, looking as tired as she felt.

"What are you?" the old man asked, no doubt put off odd-looking visitors by the Others' depredations. His question caught Missandei off-guard. Then she remembered just what the Weaver's bite had done. No doubt I look a better fit in the horde of dead men. My heart beats still, however, and I drink and sleep as any other man or woman.

"I am Missandei of Naath, sent by the queen, Daenerys Targaryen, to serve as legate to House Martell of Sunspear." They could not hear her, though, and she could not speak any louder, so she simply stuck her hand in the Greenblood's cold waters, reached over the side of their boat, and with two strokes drew with her palm a butterfly in the painted wood.

"Naath." the crone in turn said at once. That she knew it amazed Missandei but further astonishing her was the old woman's haste to pull her off the sinking boat. If I ever get my voice back, I should very much like to know just how Naath is known to you, she thought, looking at the woman's wrinkled face, framed by flyaway white hair.

While the younger couple did what they could for the girl Missandei had plucked from the river, the old woman introduced herself and the others. More tellingly, she spoke pure Rhoynish, forgoing the Common Tongue entirely. At last, a tongue I understand. Perhaps I was the right person to send to Dorne.

"I am Yrissa. My husband is Gyran, or Gyran the Grey if you want to tug his tail," she smiled, "and our son and his daughter are Gyress and Nymeria." Another Nymeria. No doubt a common name in Dorne. While Nymeria Sand had been all pride and sultry smiles though, the Nymeria that poled the Greenblood with her husband as his parents had before him had no such pretense about her. Her husband and his parents were all Rhoynish to the bone and no mistake, but she looked more alike with the people of Sunspear. Perhaps born in the shadow city beneath the castle. I wonder if she learned the Rhoynish tongue, or if she's as baffled by us as I was hanging by my feet in the Tower of the Moon. Though her voice had gone, the numbness that pervaded Missandei's fingers earlier had faded and she found herself quite able to write in answer to the woman's questions. She told the woman, who read her words aloud for her family to hear, all she could of the last few days. The Weaver in particular was difficult to describe in words though, as was Myrcella, so Missandei drew them as best she could. The Weaver's delicate, diminutive veneer and her true shape both, and the cold winds that now served as the once-princess' body. When she saw disbelief in Yrissa's face, Missandei pulled off the last strips of cloth she had on to show the holes the Weaver's fangs had left. To her surprise the holes were ever so slightly smaller, the torn skin had rounded out, the black oozing flesh gone to grey. While Yrissa screamed in alarm, her family coming over at once to protect her, Missandei only idly poked the wound. She gave a gasp of her own, feeling as though she'd poked a tender bruise. Well, that can't be a bad thing, she thought mildly. A little pain is better than no feeling at all. When Yrissa and her family calmed down, the woman asked if Missandei knew what could be done. "Sunspear's ruin means little and less to us. The Planky Town destroyed, though, that's a bend of a different current. And you say they intend to sweep all across the land…" Missandei nodded, pointing to the picture she'd drawn of Myrcella, to her written account. She took a long breath, waiting for the right moment. You are lucky to escape with your family intact, she wrote. Many others were not so lucky, and still more did not escape at all. "We weren't even at the Planky Town when we heard the screams, we were coming up to sell what we'd caught. Off straightaway, that's what, and I'm not ashamed of it a bit." Gyran said, his voice cracking. As he spoke Rhoynish as well, Missandei could only assume they either cared not if Nymeria understood what was going on or, more likely, she knew Rhoynish just fine. You are alive, Missandei wrote in answer. Alive when the Others seek to kill us all, and that is victory enough for now. I believe the best course is to push on to Godsgrace and warn the Allyrions that the dead men will reach them first, as well as prompt them to warn Dorne's other castles, towns, anywhere there might be people in great number. Dorne has many places, high mountains and empty deserts, where people don't normally go. Perhaps just now they are our best chance, away from the waters and the Others' white ships and hulks full of wights.

They rolled out a mat for Missandei and gave her fish fresh from the river. Food flavored with compassion is more delicious than any other.

"We know well the stories of Nymeria and her ten thousand ships." Yrissa told her as the rest ate. "Among other places, she visited an island at the edge of the world, one full of fruit and friendly people and butterflies of every kind and color. The dread butterfly fever did for the Rhoynish sure as any slavers or corsairs though, and in the end, they had to flee." Yrissa stroked her chin. "To be sure though, the Rhoynish were fond of the Naathi and the Naathi of them. People being how they are, it seems to me they must have had some Naathi come with them, or at least left some Rhoynish blood on those far shores. You speak our tongue as well as any born and bred on the Greenblood, Missandei of Naath. It may be so that Mother Rhoyne has more still in store for you than what already you've seen, flet, done." Afterward, they checked the riverside for dead men and turned in, each person laying on a mat themselves.The girl whose boat she'd commandeered stirred on her own mat, wrapped tightly in every spare bit of cloth and tack the family had on board. This is not a war to be counted in enemies killed, in lives lost, Missandei thought as she stared at the boat's ceiling. Others may fall, but few, and no number of dead wights does us the least bit of good. We must count it in lives saved, in lives still to lose. Including mine. She pursed her lips, wondering at her circumstances. No highborn man who hears war stories all his life and trains to hold the weapons his father held and his father before him would ever approach a war as we need now. A war a Naathi is most fit to fight, more so than any knight, any sellsword, any king. A war won by surviving meeting the enemy, not killing them. She thought of Torgo Nudho then, wondering just what use a line of Unsullied would be against a horde of dead men. Unsullied are brave, but not so brave as creatures who will smash themselves against their shields, impale themselves on their spears without a thought. The Unsullied are disciplined, but that does not matter when their positions are surrounded on all sides, tireless numberless enemies pouring in, around, over them. Wherever the boat in the hidden harbor had taken him, had taken all of them, Missandei hoped it was someplace safe. Even if just for now. Let him be safe until I see him again, and then I will take that responsibility in hand. There was the gentlest tickling on her cheek, less than the feeling of an ant walking over her foot.When Missandei reached up to rub her eye, her finger came away wet. Barely, but wet. The Weaver's poison has done its harm, she thought. Done its harm and run its course. Now there's only the task of living long enough to see if I will ever be rid of it completely one day.