Even asleep, Lys had seemed merry enough to Tyrion. A place of pleasure, where men fuck their troubles away instead of fighting them. Volantis did not so much spring out of the sea as loom ominously out over the water, off the banks of the Rhoyne.

"We ought not linger here." Tyrion said, the Red Viper smirking.

"You look as though your mother's ghost was waving you over to shore, my good dwarf. Whatever will your wife say when she hears how easily you were so unmanned?"

"Hopefully that it was good I had sense enough to avoid sticking my cock down such a lamprey's maw as Volantis." His comment made those smugglers who had the Common Tongue laugh, the rest joining in when his words were filtered through half a dozen pidgin tongues.

"The small man speaks true." One of them said, a youth Pod's age though a foot taller and possessed of blood-red hair. Perhaps the whelp of some Lysene bedslave bred for such a color. "Volantis is ruled by the Old Blood, it is not a place for those born elsewhere."

"We're not looking to pinch anyone's wife's arse-"

"-anyone important, anyway-" cut in the viper,

"-merely to call upon a dear friend and be off home, the Volantenes need not be disturbed." The closer they got, the more ill at ease Tyrion felt. Lys had been a pretty songbird, filling the air with sweet light music. Volantis was a vulture, stained with corpse-grease and squatting sagging-jowled among its bone-strewn nest. A bloody big vulture at that.

"Keep to the western half of the city. There, foreigners are less unwelcome and you'll keep out of the way of the sellswords."

"Sellswords?" Tyrion asked.

"In numbers I've never seen."

"Who would be mad enough to attack Volantis? Surely the city has defenders enough without having to piss a good bit of gold away on sellswords."

"Oh, the Old Blood isn't gathering swords to protect itself. At least, not directly. A vast fleet will sail in the coming days, bound for Meereen." Tyrion was utterly bewildered.

"And I thought Westeros mad."

"It's the silver queen, dwarf. Daenerys Targaryen. She's smashing slaver cities to rubble, freeing every slave she finds and leaving their masters' corpses to litter the ground." The Targaryens are ghosts, Tyrion thought. Gone after their dragons.

"How might a girl-child break the power of slaving families who ruled when Valyria was young?" The lad grinned wide, his sympathies well-written on his face.

"How did Valyria break Old Ghis when Grazdan the Great's empire saw the dawn of days, or so the masters say?" Tyrion swallowed, feeling as though an egg had bobbed up in his throat. He looked to Oberyn, who he saw seemed not at all surprised by any of it. Indeed, it was the sphinx's turn to wear the shape of a Dornish prince, looking down on Tyrion with his face a mask. Suddenly, I have a remarkably bad feeling.

Pulling into port, Tyrion could well see the lad had spoken true. Every dock was packed with people, either swarming into the city to escape the chaos of the east or itching to get out of Volantis and into the thick of the fighting. How are we to find one Dornishman in this? A man in red robes was loudly preaching n a tongue Tyrion didn't know, though it was obvious which god he served.

"Have you a notion of where to start?" he asked Oberyn.

"I do, at that. My daughter Nymeria's mother was of the Old Blood, I spent no little time here in my youth." Good, else you'd soon have a ninth daughter on the way instead of your nephew well in hand. Tyrion ha no better notion where to look for a prince in Volantis than he had in Lys, and so he followed Oberyn down the plank onto the dock. The city was hot and humid, the rag about his face heavy with sweat. Should I ever see a northman again, I'll apologize for everything I ever said about snow. Cold might be cold, but at least cold doesn't stink. Shit, sweat and worse lingered in the air, even through the haze of rich perfumes. Like a corpse bathed in sweetscent, Tyrion mused. Far from hide the odor, it only makes one ill. A headache had begun to rile behind his eyes. The haze would soon have him dizzy, he knew, and perhaps so much so that he might topple off the dock into the water. Thankfully Oberyn kept a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him through the crowd just as a father with an easily distracted young son might. "On," he commanded, and so Tyrion obeyed. His first impression of Volantis, it turned out, had been far from inaccurate. From every corner it seemed some herald or seneschal was extolling the virtues of the Old Blood or damning Daenerys Targaryen. Lys had been lust, open and unashamed. As Shae had been, if I'd only opened my eyes to it. Volantis was pride, suspicious and easily wounded. As Cersei is, which I've known since I could stand. They did not leave sight of the waterfront, heading to an enormous four-story inn. Volantis is the door through which travelers pass on the road further east. It stands to reason inns in this city would be so grand. "The Merchant's House," Oberyn said as they neared the building, "and no establishment of small repute."

"Do I dare hope a bath is in the offing?" Tyrion asked. "A bath and wine finer than bilge flavored with seawater." Small victories, he thought, may well count as large victories if the victor himself is small.

While the viper graciously slipped coin into one of the innkeepers' palms, Tyrion took the measure of the mob they sought to share the Merchant's House with. Sitting in a corner and half-hidden by the haze of burning lamps, a man was noisily playing a flute. The crowd around him seemed to Tyrion to speak to a certain lack of taste in musing among the inn's patrons until he saw the woven basket through their legs. Getting closer he could see the vessel contained a live serpent, bobbing precisely in imitation of the flute player. And not the kind with which I'm stuck. Though plenty of people were content to watch the snake, Tyrion knew a ruse when he saw it. Everyone looks when a pretty maid's teats bounce free, after all. Sure enough, he saw more than one hand slip in a pocket or cut free a purse and all while the piper danced. It is the man the snake follows, the music is for directing the cutpurses. Tyrion bothered to take one of them, a small child, by the arm and briefly point toward a Volantene merchant with his face in a woman's chest, who it looked had been trying to get the snipe's attention. A fat coin purse bounced off her mark's hip, one the child slit free without hesitation. Somehow, he felt his pocket get a mite heavier. Smiling, he waddled back over to where Oberyn was making idle chatter with yet another of the inn's pretty faces.

"You may be stunted, but no one can call you graceless."

"I told you I had designs on fighting the Mountain."

"And every day I only grow more wistful I did not see such art with mine own eyes."

"How long can it take to pay for a room?"

"Oh, there's more than a safe night's sleep and a dwarf's bath that needs paying for." A tax on mischief-making? Let's get us the bloody fuck out of Volantis. Oberyn nodded over Tyrion's shoulder to a corner of the common room, one conspicuously free of anyone save a half dozen scowling young men. Then Tyrion saw the shawled figure half-hidden in shadow. Without a second's hesitation the viper made right for it, Tyrion following as the snake charmer finished his song, exiting with a flourish and a round of applause from those in the common room, his associates exiting in turn as soon as wouldn't arouse suspicion. No doubt to follow their master to the docks and get quit of Volantis before a row breaks out. Tyrion felt dearly that his example ought be followed.

While Oberyn sat with thoughtless ease across from the shrouded figure, Tyrion was content to stand. A bright pair of black eyes regarded the pair of them over an emerald-green fan, the wizened hand that held it sure as it was shrunken.

"What is this?" a gently-accented voice asked from the other side of the fan. Tyrion blinked.

"Is this not where we are to be? I was led to understand that a great festival of trained serpents was to proceed at the Merchant's House. True, he has no hood, but my viper has twice the venom of any cobra." The black eyes blinked in turn, then a crone's snickering had the fan shaking.

"Trained snake or no, those who visit the widow of the waterfront must bring her a gift." Tyrion pretended to mull it over, then put his hand in his pocket. "I have no need of gold." the figure said.

"I have no gold at all, and even if I did, what good is gold to a wealthy woman?" Tyrion replied, putting the honor the snipe had slipped him on the table, crown side up.

"My beauty has left me, not my senses. Nor my sight."

"Oh, this?" Tyrion poked the coin toward her. "I merely sought to return a lost possession of yours to you."

"The child was grateful you did not scream murder when you worked out the ruse. I do not own the Merchant's House, nor do I hold with keeping rings of charlatans in my employ."

"Pardon my dwarf, he is keen to fill a tub." said Oberyn.

"From his odor, his ardor is well founded. I ask again, what have you brought me?" Tyrion chewed on the question a bit.

"Most regretfully, we have nothing to give. Save a few bolts of purple cloth and a white tiger skin-"

"Oh? Tiger skins are all the rage in Volantis these days, what with the new triarchs come to power. Not an elephant stands among them."

"Then it is yours, as well as the cloth." Tyrion said, more than a bit relieved to have done with their burdens as well as mollify the old woman.

"Such riches," she said dryly, "whatever might I do to repay this Westerosi generosity?" 'Westerosi' was all Tyrion heard. You have come far and would not have but by necessity. Tell me what you want, and we shall see what we shall see. Waste my time and you will regret it. Her meaning was no more lost on Oberyn Martell than it was on Tyrion.

"We seek a party of mine own countrymen. Six they were-"

"Six?" the crone fanned herself. "My, my. If six Dornishmen had arrived at the Merchant's House, every maid in Volantis would be beating down its doors to get inside." That does not mean Prince Quentyn is not here, Tyrion thought. Just that his original party is not.

"My pet snake misremembers. There may have been as many as six…or as few as one." he said. The crone exhaled.

"Surely, this is so. But even a lone Dornishman would surely stand out, even in an old bedslave's failing memory." Failing, my hand, Tyrion thought, thinking now of the Queen of Thorns. "But even if those you seek have come, how do you know they have not gone? Many and more are the lowborn lads flocking to the banner of this band or that company, eager to plunder their way across Slaver's Bay. Should they learn what Vogarro's whore knows, they would not be so quick to dash off and make their mothers weep." Has Prince Quentyn fallen in with sellswords? That was dire news taken any which way.

"Why would their mothers weep? Boys die by the score in battle, but not every wretch who dreams of glory manages to catch an arrow or a sword." Tyrion asked.

"Because the flux burning through Slaver's Bay like wildfire through a dry forest will do for any that manages to survive the fighting." the old woman replied bluntly. Tyrion rubbed his brow. War, plague, and all before Lord Tywin's Bane arrives.

"Surely, if any number of Dornishmen came to the Merchant's House, they'd seek above all things to stay together." Oberyn said, sounding rather as though he'd appreciate a certain dwarf remaining silent for the nonce. My pleasure, my prince.

"Dorne is half a world away, it more than stands to reason." the crone replied evenly.

"Were my dear countrymen to fall in with a sellsword company, certainly it would be the most reputable of the lot."

"If you were to do a crop of hired killers such honor as call them reputable, perhaps. Alas, it seems any man with a sword can call himself whatever he wants. A Bloody Blade, a Ragged Banner, or even a prince if he has gall enough." A lesser man's eyes might have narrowed, might have taken slight at the old woman's words. Not so with Oberyn Martell. He only gave his heartfelt thanks, setting their burdens at the crone's feet and duly left her table.

"I've never heard of the Bloody Blades, nor the Ragged Banners." Tyrion said.

"Bands of sellswords seldom last through their first battle. With names like those, I'm sure one could find record of a hundred companies of the same name. Perhaps more than one at the same time." the viper replied, making for the inn's exit. Tyrion groaned inwardly, mourning a bath and something to get the taste of grog out of his mouth, but knew better than to object. Back on the docks things were hectic as before, Tyrion spotting fully half a dozen bands of lads congealing on the shoreline. Sailing to their ends. "It will not be one of those. A company with means by which to get to Slaver's Bay." Oberyn said. A storied one. One I'll have bloody heard of, at the least.

"Put your days of shoveling shit and wiping rich men's arses behind you! Come fight with the Windblown, earn your share of gold and girls alike! Ride with the Tattered Prince hisself!" Prince of what, I wonder? Tyrion thought, mulling over the crone's words. Oberyn had not missed it either, off with Tyrion waddling in his wake.

Far from the shambles the docks had been, what stretch of waterfront the Windblown had purposed for recruitment was orderly, even spartan. Men were going about the business of taking on new blood, the serjeants present not sparing their new brothers a second glance. They've done all this before, Tyrion realized, seen the same boys die the same deaths a hundred times over. He wondered if Jaime had ever felt much the same way seeing green boys assemble for drilling. The man overseeing the whole affair was a huge Dothraki with a face scarred enough to rival Tyrion's own, a black arakh of Valyrian steel on his hip. At the sight of Tyrion, he snorted contemptuously.

"The Tattered Prince needs fighters, not fools. We're on to Slaver's Bay to rip out the dragon queen's heart and eat it raw." His face, meanwhile, suggested this particular sellsword would have just as happily torn out a slaver's heart and offered it to Daenerys if it occurred to her to outbid the man's current contractor. In short, a sellsword.

"We're neither. Just looking for a few of our ship's crewmen, captain wants to be underway by nightfall." Tyrion said, putting a rasp into his voice as he spat into the water. "D'you know, I forget how many they were-"

"There." Oberyn said, putting a hand on Tyrion's shoulder and adopting his altered speech.

"Oh." Tyrion said. He coughed. "'Pologies. Good luck with them hearts, hear they're tough eating."

"Off with you, scum." the Dothraki said, gesturing with his thumb. Giving the man a wide berth, Oberyn led Tyrion not back toward the crowd, but through a tent full of rusted steel to reach the other side of the Windblown assembly area. More young blood waited there, but among them stood a man six and a half feet tall, bald as a polished stone, whose eyes went wide at the sight of Oberyn Martell. His huge hand jostled his companion, a man possessed of long blonde hair and easy smiles. He did not smile so easily on seeing the Red Viper, looking half ready to shit himself then and there. His hand tugged on a third man's sleeve in turn, making him turn to catch sight of the approaching prince. Tyrion's first impression was of a brick with a face, with Prince Doran's brown eyes and none of Arianne's magnetism. Tyrion could only watch as Oberyn's hand descended, putting a hand on his nephew's shoulder. There, that's the thing done, he thought. Can I go home and fuck my wife now?

Unfortunately, it seemed the Dothraki had caught sight of them again, snorting like a bull as he shoved his way over. Rather than yank the viper's skirt and catch a dagger for his trouble, Tyrion coughed loudly before waddling up to the big bald man.

"Eh!" he shouted, as loudly as he could manage. "You lot are missed on Western Wind! Best be quick elsewise I'll put your mother to the task I well paid a courtesan for!" Perhaps it was his words, perhaps it was the sight of Tyrion shouting at a man more than twice him in height and as many as four Tyrions in weight but soon the whole throng was laughing, more than enjoying the farce. The Dothraki was not so amused, Tyrion feeling as though he'd perhaps yanked the wrong bull's tail.

"No one short as you should claim to know anything of women. If you have to look up at it, it isn't for you." the bald man retorted, the crowd laughing all the harder.

"It's not how tall a man is, it's how long, and how would you know with that fucking belly blocking your view?" Tyrion barked.

"It doesn't matter how long or tall a man is if he's dead." An unfriendly snort sounded from behind him. Tyrion turned, wondering if he dared to barb the Dothraki when he found the knife the Red Viper had slipped him in the Red Viper's own hand, point pressed to the sellsword captain's throat.

"If you kill him here, he's going to fall on me." Tyrion remarked dryly, abandoning his ruse. And I had something going there, too.

"There are sellswords the world over. Dwarfs are not so easy to come by, nor countrymen this far from Dorne." Oberyn replied evenly.

"Though, it seems princes can be had for three a penny. If you could avoid spilling Caggo all over our assembly area, it would be appreciated." Tyrion turned to see an older man past sixty approaching in the company of a good two dozen of his fellows, all armed. His cloak was a patchwork of a dozen hues and colors, a rainbow of rags. The Tattered Prince, or I am not a dwarf. He was no Volantene, either. Keen to leave as we are, perhaps.

"Might as well spare him. He's an uglier man than I am and the more there are of those in the world, the better I'll feel about myself." Tyrion said. If nothing else, I know how to make sellswords laugh.

"If it's these three you want, do take them. One fresh-faced lad is much like another." the greyhair said. Funny, I do believe the same could be said of corpses. "Though, even a doddering old sword finds it hard to believe they're worth coming from Dorne for." Balls, Tyrion thought.

"Well, if you've got somewhere we can talk, I'd be happy to fill you in."

"Come, then, if you're feeling bold. You may be the first dwarf to die fighting for the Windblown." Lucky me.

The Tattered Prince had set himself up on a ship, his retinue and the officers of his company already aboard and ready to sail. Tyrion wondered if it were perhaps smarter to spread command out over multiple ships, anything could happen at sea after all, but Caggo was still eyeing him and so he kept that wisdom to himself. Far from the rabble packing Volantis' docks, the Tattered Prince enjoyed the sort of living Tyrion would expect of a rich merchant or even a lord.

"I've known highborn men to live like pigs, it's a nice change to see a sellsword not so keen to sport fleas and lice."

"Can a sellsword not also be highborn? Your companion certainly is, and served with the Second Sons for some time." He mentioned no names, but Tyrion heard him well enough.

"I'm not so bold as to speak for him. My prospects were quite shit until he intervened. Old Rags turned to Oberyn.

"Bold of you to return to Essos. As I recall, you had left the Second Sons to form the Sun's Sons…whatever happened to your band?"

"What do you think? We got drunk and made off with a ship full of Lyseni who'd been captured by corsairs. A better end than most companies meet, surely." Prince Quentyn and his companions, for their part, stood by the far wall of the Tattered Prince's cabin, saying nothing. A young man who knows when to keep his mouth shut, well, that's something at least. "Speaking of corsairs, they managed to kill off half my nephew's party during his coming-of-age tour. A bit rude, but when have corsairs ever been the mannered sort? When word reached Sunspear, Prince Doran dispatched me to bring Quentyn back." The Tattered Prince picked something out from under his thumbnail.

"And did his intended tour stretch all the way to Slaver's Bay? He and his companions seem to me intent on going further east, not returning home." Tyrion swallowed. Westerosi might think of the Free Cities as exotic and alluring, but no one could claim to want to see Slaver's Bay based on the same merit.

"Well, that's stupid. We've heard aught but woe regarding the east. War, the flux…" Tyrion said.

"…and Daenerys Targaryen. Whyever would Westerosi be seeking the Mother of Dragons, I wonder?"

"You haven't been to Westeros of late. This is what it's come to to keep order in the Seven Kingdoms." Oberyn intoned.

"Order? One does not speak of order and Daenerys Targaryen in the same breath unless one is mad. She has Slaver's Bay in anarchy and more beyond, besides. When she broke the chains of slaves, she broke the illusion their masters held as well. Now these highborn slaving families fear their chattel, afraid some sewer urchin will bash their noble brains in with a brick at any moment. Why else would Yunkai empty its coffers to contract the Windblown and a half-dozen other companies besides? Why would Slaver's Bay make common cause with Qarth, rope in Elyria, Tolos and Mantarys? All told, her enemies outnumber Daenerys' own forces by almost four to one. She has only the walls of Meereen, her Unsullied, a mob of scrabbling freedmen-"

"-and three dragons." Oberyn said bluntly.

Tyrion's head snapped to the viper. So that's the game. A single Targaryen girl would not put Westeros to rights, would not stop the endless fighting. If anything, she'd just present another faction, one viewed as foreign and savage…but three dragons would do much and more toward putting the lords of Westeros in their place. There would be no more fools grabbing for a crown, no lickspittles hoisting up their petty kings with dragons to contend with.

"May I voice an observation?" Tyrion asked.

"By all means, do. I did not ask you here because you were a joy to look at." the Tattered Prince replied.

"No doubt if the Yunkish knew you were talking so candidly with us, they'd demand you put us to the sword. Westerosi with designs on Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons both…that's why half the world is up in arms. Dragons smashed Old Ghis once upon an age, the wealthy and the slavers of today will do anything, pay what they must to ensure such does not occur again."

"I scarcely think they'd approve of letting you continue on to Meereen."

"Which begs the question of why we're having this little talk at all. Perhaps even with the dragons in the mix, you're confident in the slavers' ability to reclaim Meereen. A sellsword doesn't reach your age nor your command by leaving such things to chance, though. You want to be on the winning side when the dust settles. But why? Why get involved at all, when the risk is so great? The flux could do away with both armies entirely and leave Meereen a lichyard." The Tattered Prince looked at Tyrion for a long time.

"I refused to be a puppet of the Pentoshi magisters, to bind my life to blind fortune. I want Pentos, good dwarf, my city and my home, to rule as I will in my grey hairs. Tyrion couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for the man, for destiny so thoroughly ruined. Had the gods allowed, this was a man who could have been great. Instead, he is a sellsword and his name will be forgotten the moment he falls, if not sooner.

"Understandable…" Tyrion baited.

"But?" their host asked, Oberyn watching the pair raptly.

"I ask again, why? Say you take Pentos with the aid of one or the other, the slavers or the freed. What then? You would be a second Daenerys, only smaller and without so nice a pair of teats. All the magisters would make common cause against you, as the slavers have against Daenerys. Can you outbid every one of them put together for swords, for aid, for loans? I do not doubt you've dreamed more than once of ruling the city of your birth." Tyrion drummed his fingers against the mahogany table. "Surely a man of your cast is realistic enough to know that such a thing is no more than a dream. The magisters will ever rule in Pentos. There are other opportunities, though. Other ends. A year from now, the Tattered Prince may be a tattered lord, and that not just an empty title. Fight for the Yunkish, and they'll pay you what gold they contracted you for and not a clipped copper more. Fight for Daenerys, and you will be paid in more than coin."

The Tattered Prince, it was clear to see, did not appreciate Tyrion so brusquely dismissing his heart's desire. However, it was also evident that he did not dismiss Tyrion's prospect so easily.

"Your dwarf does more than just tell jokes." he told Oberyn.

"Had I known he would serve my ends so well, I'd have won him all the quicker so as not to lose valuable time." the viper replied, smirking with his arms crossed.

"You will not find passage to Meereen, no ship will go to Slaver's Bay with war and flux shredding it in turn. The quickest way would be to sail among the Windblown."

"To be sure, that much we learned for ourselves. I'll bet half the "sellswords" get no further than the end of the nearest pier." Tyrion said.

"The Yunkish have contracted us not just to aid them with Meereen, but to put an end to the chaos in Astapor. It seems the Red City is little more than an abattoir these dire days, with butchers and whores crowning themselves just before they're cut down in turn."

"And Yunkai's gold is enough to tempt the Windblown into courting the flux, is it?"

"More like they want the city purged of any elements still loyal to Daenerys. And a city ripe for sack is tempting, particularly with so many extra hands on hand."

"You'd get a fair amount of juice squeezing the Astapori fruit, but no matter how good it tastes, there is the possibility it is tainted by the flux."

"You would have us pass it by?" Tyrion shrugged.

"Dwarfs plot and sellswords plunder, it is the nature of the beast. I'm certainly not about to stop the Windblown from picking Astapor clean, but my concerns are valid and are owed voicing."

"Perhaps while we attend to our business as sellswords, then, you will attend to yours as a dwarf."

"It would be my pleasure." Tyrion said, clapping his hands together. "Which ship in this fine fleet of yours shall we be quartered on?"

"A wise man hides gold and gems within reach, else he may find that even if he knows where they are, they elude his grasp." The Tattered Prince stood. "It will be tight, perhaps, with five. You are a small man, but that bald brute will make up for the size you lack."

"As long as I'm not being stuffed down a privy, I will count myself lucky." Tyrion replied.

When they were set up in a cabin below the Tattered Prince's, Oberyn made introductions.

"Lord Tyrion, Ser Archibald Yronwood of Yronwood. Called 'Greenguts' outside our little needlework circle." he said, gesturing to the big man.

"-bald is right-"

"-fuck off, dwarf-"

"-Ser Gerris Drinkwater, sworn to Yronwood, called 'Drink'. Prince Quentyn Martell, mine own nephew, who wears the name of 'Frog'. Sers, my prince, Lord Tyrion Lannister, rightful heir of Casterly Rock. Careful letting him around your paramours or he'll make off with them without a second thought. Oh, and Quentyn, your father and I have married him to your sister." Prince Quentyn looked aghast, but whether it was Tyrion's face or lineage was hard to say.

"What's a Lannister doing here?" Ser Archibald asked.

"A truly heinous accusation of kinslaying and kingslaying was levied at my stalwart friend. I stepped in to see justice done and, in his gratitude, he agreed to accompany me back to Dorne. One whirlwind romance later and he and Arianne were married…and then we had to come find you." Tyrion stuck his head out from behind Prince Oberyn.

"Your uncle spitted the Mountain like a sausage, I laughed in my father's face and we fucked off. Suffice it to say whatever game you lot have been cooking up, I'm content to play." For now. The rest could be similarly implied.

"The Mountain's dead, eh?" Ser Gerris grinned while Ser Archibald beamed. "Well done, my prince."

"Putting down Lord Tywin's frothing dog was only the first step. There is much yet to do before the game reaches its end." Oh, goody. Tyrion caught all three lads shooting him a glance at mention of his father, returning their looks with as untroubled and even bored a face as ever he wore. He squinted at Prince Quentyn in particular, unpleasantly reminded of Oberyn's account of him. As dull as dishwater, in a sentence. "We had not counted on the flux burning through Slaver's Bay, nor the slaving world moving as one to rid themselves of Daenerys Targaryen." Oberyn said. "It would have been hard enough without such dire complications."

"We can't turn around, Uncle. Cletus Yronwood, Ser Willam Wells, Maester Kedry…their deaths would have been for nothing." Quentyn said, though it seemed to Tyrion the opportunity to sail for Sunspear was all the young prince truly wanted.

"And what will your deaths be for, my prince? Do you think yourself the hero in a tale, rushing toward impossible odds to rescue Daenerys from the slavers' armies?" Tyrion asked, the boy-called-man blushing. "Maybe you figure you'll mount a dragon in the meantime, why not? You're the hero, and the hero always lives in the tales. I've never heard it told how the hero shits his brains out before his first battle, though, or pisses himself when he watches his first man die. Those will happen for a certainty, do not doubt them." He jerked his head to the cabin door. "This wind you seek to catch will blow you one direction, and one direction only. You might think Volantis unpleasant. Wait until you see Astapor, rotting in the sun. Or Meereen, sweltering in turns from bouts of flux and the armies trudging the countryside around it to mud and dust." Quentyn bristled- or rather, looked as though he tried to bristle. His companions were not near so reserved, each no doubt itching to toss Tyrion overboard. The Red Viper made no move to stop them, but neither did he reprimand Tyrion.

"I am a prince of Dorne-"

"-and that means what to the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, to the Mother of fucking Dragons? 'Frog' is what you're called and it seems to me a frog you are." Quentyn's face hardened.

"I will not return to Sunspear empty-handed, dwarf. My companions' blood is on my hands."

"You will not return to Sunspear at all, my prince. Best write your beloved a farewell letter- I did hear something about a Yronwood girl- and I will be pleased to deliver it." Tyrion waddled over to a crate and clambered atop it. "Unless, of course, you're really not a hero from all the tales." he shrugged. "Should you be utterly, torturously, boringly ordinary in most every way aside from birth, you might have wits enough the gods give a real frog to let your elders pull you out of the sty you've waded into. Listen to your uncle. And to me. You do not seem to lack for wits, but you are a young man, as are your companions, and young men sport a legendary death of wisdom." It was plain Quentyn Martell hated feeling the boy, but better he catch a sharp rebuke than a sharp riposte.

"One is the other, after a fashion." he finally said.

"Untrue. Your first lesson, then, my prince. Intelligence is knowing a dragon breathes fire. Wisdom is not sticking your head in one's mouth to make certain."