At least Meereen sounded more alive than had Astapor. Or maybe that's the sound of half the world's armies gathering around it. Tyrion remained below deck with the Dornishmen until the Windblown knocked on the door at nightfall.
"You'll keep your mouths shut if you want to reach the dragon queen." a red-faced knight among the sellswords was saying. Tyrion mused that before he had been a sellsword, he might have been a hedge knight. Or else he fled when his master was cast down and he didn't much feel like wearing a noose. No one would spend spit to ransom his like, let alone gold.
"As you say." Tyrion replied, allowing Oberyn to wrap his head in musty rags.
"Word of a boy hoping to keep away the flux will not spread beyond the street he walks. Dwarfs are not so easily forgotten, let alone noseless dwarfs." the viper said. Tyrion said not a word in protest. After all, the hidden dwarf is the one that goes unmocked. Prince Quentyn looked nowhere near as calm.
"If you could stop your knees knocking, Frog, I'd appreciate it." Tyrion told him. Daenerys keeps fiercer men than you in her company. If you go before her looking like you're about to piss yourself, it will rather not matter if you profess yourself a prince of Dorne. As it stood, the Red Viper seemed content to do whatever talking would be required.
"After all, you are still a Lannister." he'd said before they came onto the deck. "I don't think you'll be much welcome in Daenerys' presence, droll as you are." Tyrion followed the rest of them onto the Meereenese dock, a hair more at ease when he saw the city had indeed endured after falling to Daenerys Targaryen. That ease withered before it could bloom when he saw the breadth of the host the Yunkish were busily ringing Meereen in. Some things he knew well, like bowmen and riders, and others he didn't, like elephants and camelry. Nearer to him there were people buying and selling whatever they might to earn a meal even as night espoused the docks, sashaying women taking the place of merchants as they passed each other through the western gate. Though they were indistinguishable to Tyrion, he saw that divisions ran deep between the people in Meereen. As they got closer, he understood why. The lowborn of the city held no love for the newly-freed in their midst, no more than the freedmen cared to tread lightly around those born to no more than their own bodies, as they themselves had been. Keeping the peace after a fashion were men clad in dark hoods whom nobody much seemed to want to keep near too long. The gold cloaks of Meereen, Tyrion mused. Only, with a bit of a start did Tyrion realize the nearer of the men wasn't wearing the face of a surly guardsman but a screaming panther. Following Oberyn past him, Tyrion saw the other guards were hiding their faces behind brass masks as well. He counted an ape, an eagle and a lion among their number, the rest too far or turned away to know what animal they were for certain. Past the guards he saw a teetering column of skulls standing in full view of what looked like half of Meereen's markets. How welcoming.
Tyrion nearly had to shove Quentyn to get him moving past the monument.
"Don't gape, lad." he muttered as loudly as he dared.
"Do you see-"
"Of course I do. Are we going to do anything for them? On now, and try to keep your eyes from bulging out of your head like that when we go before the queen." Tyrion hissed, giving the prince an elbow in the thigh to spur him on. The skulls did not worry him half so much as the masked guardsmen. Even the gold cloaks do not feel the need to hide who they are. That chilling thought was not lost on the Red Viper either, who busied himself with leading their little wedge through the streets of Meereen as quickly as he could move it. Their destination could not have been plainer- the pyramid at the city's heart made the ones around it seem like pimples ringing a nose, its bricks of many colors standing in contrast to the smaller structures built in pairs of such. Tyrion committed each smaller pyramid's pair of colors to memory. Pink-and-white. Purple-and-indigo. Perhaps that's how the Meereenese mark nobility, the sons or daughters of this house or that.
"We'll be hard-pressed to wheedle Daenerys out of all this." Ser Gerris muttered. The closer they got to the pyramid, the more woefully true the knight's words seemed to be. The Meereenese talked of little else but a wedding of all things, the freedmen dubious that any agreement Daenerys might strike with the slavers would be honored while those sympathetic to the slavers scoffed that it was no right of a barbarian to call a halt to slavery. Near the base of the pyramid the masked guardsmen grew thicker, yet Tyrion spotted spiked helms on stone-faced men standing at every entrance. Eunuchs, Tyrion mused when he saw their beardless faces. There was nothing of Varys in these castrati, though. No full round cheeks, no air of mystery, no mummery. Varys was too smart to think acting more the soldier would win him many friends in the Red Keep anyhow. Tyrion kept his eyes on Oberyn's back, content to let every unfriendly gaze about to slide past him, over him, as if he were invisible. This mummer's trick has served me well, he thought. However, it will not serve should I seek to fool a sharper-eyed man. Boys seldom waddle.
Inside, the pyramid was just as busy. Petitioners and those seeking an audience with the queen were packing themselves up a stair so tightly there would have been scarce enough room for even Tyrion to stand among them. And I know a thing or two about cramped quarters by now.
"Are we to wait upon the queen's pleasure, then?" Ser Archibald said, looking dangerously green again."
"We're nowhere near the open sea now." Tyrion reminded him.
"It's not a ship's rocking that has my stomach fluttering, it's being packed in like an arrow in a quiver."
"D'you know, I think you can't grow any hair on that polished stone of a head of yours because inside it is still a babe squalling for a wet nurse." Ser Gerris said, a hand over the left side of his face.
"I hardly think anyone will give up their place in the queue on your account, Greenguts. There's nothing for it but to wait to reach the queen." Prince Quentyn said, sounding resolved. Of course he's resolved, Tyrion reflected. Waiting in line, how heroic. He did not seem overly concerned with news that Daenerys Targaryen intended to wed. More fool him. Does he think the mere mention of his name will have her stripping bare and bending over for him with all the slavers of the world watching? Oberyn was no less dismissive of the clear and present danger to their plan that such news posed. Tyrion remembered the way the Red Viper's spear had shimmered before he'd served it to the Mountain. Should we forgo announcing ourselves, I rather fear the groom will drop dead most mysteriously. Such an eventuality would only have Yunkai's host coming down on Meereen, the slavers screaming for the death of the queen…and a need for succor elsewhere. It would mean leaving most everything but the dragons, and I'm sure Daenerys put a lot of time assembling such Dothraki, Unsullied and freedmen as she has. A substantial number to be sure, why part with it? A stupid man might think three dragons enough in time to take Westeros, but an army proper would be sweet to have in tow as well. He could hardly confer with Prince Oberyn on the subject standing on the stair and surrounded by ears as they were though, and so Tyrion was subjected to near two hours of Ser Archibald groaning and shuddering, sweating through his leathers as they slowly ascended up to the audience chamber proper.
Blinking out the darkness of the stairway up, Tyrion beheld a world of purple marble. Walls, tiles and pillars of the stuff loomed dark and ominous when paired with sputtering candles. People stood elbow to elbow from one wall to the other and so Tyrion could see no further than the end of the ghost of his nose.
"Can you see her?" Quentyn whispered to Ser Archibald, the only one among them tall enough to see over the throng.
"I can." Tyrion looked up and was startled to see the big man had gone pale. Ser Archibald looked down at him, face resigned. "You might be in for it, little man." he said, forgetting that with a rag about his face, Tyrion ought to be some nameless boy. I've only just got here, Tyrion thought. Whose wife have I yet given a big belly to? He put aside such thoughts, instead focusing on what he might glean from the petitioners around him. If anything, the situation was still direr than he'd figured outside. The Yunkai'i had wormed their way into Daenerys' pyramid it seemed, and the hand of the Yellow City had only been stayed by the advent of her wedding to one of Meereen's own noble sons, a Hizdahr zo Loraq. The Tattered Prince might be having second thoughts if he could see this far. Whatever it is we plan to do, we have ever less time to do it. Inch by inch, foot by foot, Tyrion sensed they were moving forward. He took to looking to the lights of the candles to tell how quickly (or otherwise) it was taking them. He happened to be looking at one past the Red Viper's head when suddenly the snake was elbowing Tyrion behind Ser Archibald so hard his jaw clacked. Were they not packed together so tightly Tyrion would have gone spilling across the purple-tiled floor, yet tellingly Ser Gerris steadied him behind Ser Archibald without a word, careful to keep him in the big man's shadow. She'll hardly know me for a Lannister on sight. Then again, leaving such things to chance did not strike Tyrion to be much Oberyn Martell's way.
"Apologies, Your Radiance," Tyrion heard the viper call in what seemed to be the Meereenese fashion when they came to the fore, "the sight of your beauty had the boy speaking as if he were a man." A giggle from somewhere beyond Ser Archibald Yronwood's considerable bulk was Tyrion's introduction to Daenerys Targaryen. The sound of her voice gargling and growling to her advisors in the Ghiscari tongue was so bizarre Tyrion had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop a bark of laughter from ruining the ploy. When next she spoke, though, it was in the Common tongue of Westeros.
"It would not be the first time, I think, a boy has made a fool of himself for a young girl's viewing pleasure." Or a dwarf's, Tyrion thought, remembering his cousin Lancel's peach fuzz-covered upper lip.
"What business brings you before Her Grace today?" The other voice was male, older, and undoubtedly Westerosi. And undoubtedly highborn. Tyrion chanced to glimpse a pair of white greaves between Ser Archibald's legs. Either Jaime's gone and beaten us to Daenerys, Tyrion thought, stomach sinking, or fate's gone and fucked me sideways.
Still marveling at the gods' ability to piss into most any pie, Tyrion listened to the Red Viper address the queen.
"The Tattered Prince sends his congratulations on your coming wedding, Your Radiance." he said, playing the part of the common sellsword flawlessly. Smart. As far as anyone knows, the Windblown are still on Yunkai's side. All the better to remind them they need pay no heed to Old Rags past the gold they stuff into his pockets.
"Your commander is a man of great renown. I should be honored to count him among the attendees." Daenerys replied, a deal stiffer than before. She needs no reminding that every sellsword company in Meereen is here to make sure she spreads her legs for Loraq and the slavers like a good queen. Oberyn cleared his throat, and briefly high leather boots sporting gold rings stepped briskly past the gap in Ser Archibald's legs. The viper murmured something. Is he truly mad enough to ask for a private audience surrounded by so many eyes and ears? When the man returned to the queen's side, he did so chuckling.
"It seems the Tattered Prince is not so fond of cats, my queen. He requests that he be seated as far away from Bloodbeard and his pet kittens as can be reasonably accommodated." The rivalries of the sellsword companies were fit fare for the Yunkai'i present to snort and snicker at, it seemed, and though Tyrion heard more than one dark murmur from a corner of the vast audience hall the majority were amused by the glib man's remark. There came an unfurling of paper, and then the longest silence Tyrion had ever known.
"Your master has quite the list of demands. Skahaz, clear my court if you would." A shout that would have made a giant proud rang out, and masked men were ushering the crowd out of the room with remarkable speed. A truly brutish boar among them prodded Tyrion with the end of his spear, muttering in some gibberish behind his mask.
"Not this one, friend. Someone needs to wipe the big man's arse after a long visit to the privy." Ser Gerris said, taking the boar by the shoulder. Though he'd spoken in nothing resembling the Common Tongue he gave a remarkably piggish snort of laughter at the handsome knight's words, moving on as he did. Soon Tyrion could see that the masked men might have done to keep the peace in the hall, but the Unsullied were the ones ringing the girl on the bench. So young, Tyrion thought. No more than five or six years older than Myrcella.
Daenerys Targaryen did not strike him as the sort to pummel slaver cities into so much sand. She looked the type fonder by far of marrying legendary heroes than being them. The girl (it was impossible to think of her as aught else) wore her silver hair behind the crown upon her head, clad in a thin purple silk thing with a belt of copper medallions cinched about her waist and what looked to be new-made sandals on her feet. This is a girl, Tyrion thought, stomach shrinking to the size of an especially robust pea. A girl, and anyone with half his wits will know her for just that at a glance. Perhaps sending Quentyn was not so bad a notion of Prince Doran's after all. Oh, still bad, still horrendous, but in a different way. Beside her stood a scowling bald man, still another who made the air around him shimmer with perfume, a grinning sellsword with indigo hair, and Ser Barristan Selmy of the thrice-damned Kingsguard. Tyrion started when a big pair of golden eyes blinked at him curiously out from behind the old knight.
"I would sooner debate into the night somewhere more comfortable. Ser Barristan, see these Windblown…" she pointed to the Dornish party that sported Tyrion like an unattractive mole "to my apartments upstairs. Missandei, have the servants prepare wine and food, I'll not send the Tattered Prince's men back to him parched and peckish."
"This one hears and obeys." the little gold-eyed creature replied, withdrawing without a sound.
"The Tattered Prince is an old man wrapped in rags." the sellsword complained. "That we haven't clapped his dregs in irons is welcoming enough, I am thinking."
"The Windblown must have taken much and more of the Storm Crows' business, hm?" the queen suggested, making the beetle-browed scowler snort, the sound loud as a snapping branch. "Reznak, see to the needs of the Yunkai'i before you join us upstairs. I would not have them wanting for succor either."
"It will be done, Your Radiance." the perfumed man said, bowing from the hall. Tyrion was reminded of a balder, slimier Littlefinger. Just a face fit to catch a warhammer, then. Only when Ser Archibald began to move did Tyrion dare do so in turn, trying his best to keep out of Barristan Selmy's sight. Word will reach King's Landing of Barristan the Bold's reappearance, he thought, remembering the day he'd brought up just that possibility to Cersei. And to think Father fought a great big war to keep her sons on the Iron Throne. Joff is lucky he died before someone worse got their hands on him.
Part of him was disappointed when there was no trace of a dragon (or three) lurking in the lofty apartments at the top of the pyramid. They may be hunting, he mused, or kept elsewhere. Or may not exist at all. Though rumors had abounded in his journey east, Tyrion tried to keep his expectations in check. How else to survive in such a world? Servants bustled about, ignoring the Windblown (such as they were) while they laid out food and drink.
"This one would suggest eating inside so that the birds don't try to steal anything." the queer little girl said, appearing from behind a column. Oh, birds steal inside just as well, Tyrion mused, thinking on Varys. The eunuch soldiers followed them in, the queen arriving last. Her courtly façade had cracks in it, Tyrion was able to see tears in her purple eyes. When Ser Barristan rushed to her side so much like a wet nurse in white plate, she handed him the parchment Oberyn had given the sellsword. Tyrion was uncomfortably aware of the golden-eyed little girl's gaze on him. The others in Daenerys Targaryen's retinue who were not Westerosi did not appreciate being left in the dark, though Tyrion wondered if the sour man with the shaved head appreciated much of anything but hot blood on his hands. Would that I had crossed the Narrow Sea with the Hound in my company. He might have found a kindred spirit in this brute. Daring for a peek out from behind Ser Archibald, Tyrion watched Ser Barristan's eyes roll over the parchment. The old knight blinked uncomprehendingly, going from concerned for his queen to dazed on his feet. An honorable man like Barristan the Bold might have mistook Oberyn Martell's expression then for one of conspiratorial amusement but Tyrion well knew the sphinx's face when he saw it. Nothing is ever so plain and simple men like Ser Barristan could get through life unaided. But then, that's honor for you.
"Well, Ser Grandfather? What does the Ragged Prince want, aside from a seat of high honor at the queen's wedding? A dozen maiden girls? A dozen fresh-faced boys? Or first pick of all our curtains and bedcovers to add to that rag he wears?" the sellsword asked impatiently.
"It isn't from the Tattered Prince, or any Windblown." the queen replied, indigo-hair looking confused for a moment before his face darkened. You ought have learned to read instead of just twirl those stupid knives, sellsword. "It's a marriage pact arranging for my brother Viserys to wed the Prince of Dorne's daughter."
"Who, alas, is quite spoken for." Oberyn intoned apologetically. "Nevertheless, we sought to bring more than words of encouragement from home." Daenerys swallowed.
"Spoken for or not, Viserys is dead. As for myself, I am due to wed-"
"We know." Tyrion said, unable to hold his tongue, stare at Ser Archibald's arse or endure a certain golden gaze any longer.
He stepped out from behind the bald knight, prompting a deep, angry intake of breath from Ser Barristan. Tyrion tore the rag away from his face, the need for pretense gone. The brutal man made a noise of disgust.
"We know you're due to wed some slaver lord, ostensibly to forge a lasting peace. Your Grace, such an effort is a noble thing, but we've been in Meereen's streets. Your promised compromise will fold in on itself the second the slavers have an excuse, if they haven't already planned such. Poisoning one of their own and blaming your cook, burning a corpse and blaming a dragon…there is nothing to be gained from wedding this Meereenese lord. But what need have you for a Meereenese peace or a Meereenese husband? This is not your country, a hot far land where the last remnants of the Old Empire of Ghis cook like worms beneath the sun. Yours is a fertile one and vast besides." If half and more frozen over more oft than not. He noticed a man in a scorpion mask muttering in Shaved-Head's ear, probably translating. To Tyrion's surprise, he saw no ire in those ugly beetle-black eyes. No more than was there in the first place, anyway.
"Where your father waits to serve Her Grace as your brother served her father." Barristan Selmy said, face darker by the word.
"And?" Tyrion asked in reply before turning back to Daenerys. "All Mad Aerys is to you, Your Grace, is a name. One I'll wager your brother taught you, as well as its significance. One only has to examine Viserys Targaryen's ignominious end to determine the value of his opinion on most anything." Daenerys looked almost overwhelmed, unable to speak for a moment.
"Who are you?" she finally gasped out. Before Ser Barristan could tar him with any number of accusations (false or otherwise), Tyrion answered.
"I am Tyrion Lannister, son of Tywin Lannister, heir by men's laws to Casterly Rock." He gestured to the Dornishmen. "Princes Oberyn and Quentyn, of House Martell. The big man with the egg-shaped head is Ser Archibald Yronwood and the pretty one is Ser Gerris Drinkwater. Now, I can see you're a bit taken aback. Let me assure you, Your Grace, these men are your most leal subjects." Tyrion said, the Dornishmen kneeling.
"And you, my lord?" Daenerys asked, still looking dazed.
"That depends on if you're going to let someone kill me in the next half minute, Your Grace." She gave a gasp of laughter, blushing red as a pomegranate while she hid her mouth with her hand.
"Your Grace, Lord Tywin is directly responsible for-"
"Much and more, I think, Ser Barristan. Or do you disagree?" Prince Oberyn asked softly. "My sister and her children haunt me to this day. Would I have brought Lord Tyrion before Her Grace without good reason?"
"If the ugly dwarf's head would buy the queen's favor." One of the masked men had begun to translate Shaved-Head's words.
"Dwarf heads are harder to come by than gold. It so happens that this one in particular is most profitable kept in one piece, more or less." Oberyn answered.
"In fact, I have your own sworn brother Ser Mandon Moore to thank for this, Ser Barristan." Tyrion said. Selmy's mouth became a hard line. "So sad that a knight of the Kingsguard consented to be a mere catspaw, and of such a bumbling fool as Cersei. Save what tears you'd shed for my nose, you'd weep blood if you knew what the Kingsguard has come to these days." Tyrion told him. You might not be so quick to disparage Jaime if you knew of such stalwarts as Osmund Kettleblack. "Assuming you live to see the White Sword Tower again, Ser Barristan, you will have quite the task setting your order to rights." Tyrion said lightly. For a moment, no one said anything. Then, haltingly and in a voice as brutal-sounding as its owner looked, Shaved-Head spoke, and in the Common Tongue.
"The dwarf can talk."
"And how." Prince Oberyn replied. "When the lion roars, what sense is there in trying to talk him down?" He turned back to the queen. "I saw little enough indication outside that House Targaryen had taken the Great Pyramid of Meereen as its seat. There's no more hint inside the pyramid itself, which doesn't strike me as a coincidence. Though you may purport yourself to be this city's queen, Your Grace, it is not your home. Your apartments would not be so bare if you felt you belonged." I wonder why, Tyrion mused wryly. Oberyn put a hand on his shoulders. "Here stands the next step on your way to the Iron Throne. The gods work in ways no man can fathom, truly…but they saw fit to shape Lord Tyrion to be Tywin Lannister's undoing. I have seen his workings for myself, he's built for the task from boots to brow." Tyrion's mouth fell open, gaping like a landed carp. "Odd that he himself seems not so resolved." the queen said, fighting through her embarrassment. She hates being seen as a child, he saw. Being seen as the naïve young girl. Well, better a naïve girl than a dead one. "Well, unfortunately I've not worked out how to stop him gumming himself up. Not that that's a bad thing, make a man believe he's shed his every weakness and you end up with Lord Tywin."
"Are you saying he's invulnerable?" Daenerys asked.
"Far from it. The gaps in his armor are great bleeding things his lordship doesn't even realize are there. Stick him as I stuck Ser Gregor, and Lord Tywin Lannister will fall."
That was news to Ser Barristan.
"You killed the Mountain?"
"In the sight of the Seven, I merely defended Lord Tyrion from baseless accusations of kinslaying and kingslaying. The Mountain was just in the way. Either way, Lord Tywin's mad dog will bite no more. Such vengeance as I can take upon him, I have, but I mean to have the hand that gripped his leash as well." And the arm, and so on, Tyrion finished. He heard Myrcella's words of all people. Grandfather has erred, she told me when she heard of his plans regarding the north. Could he have erred just as gravely letting me go to Dorne?
"No doubt there'd be a line from here to King's Landing if people were queuing for vengeance against my lord father. But vengeance is a poor ink in which to write a lasting peace."
"Who would grieve for him? You, my lord?" Ser Barristan asked.
"I'd fight Ser Gregor myself if it meant being the first in line to take a piss on my father's corpse. Not before stealing his boots, though. There are good men in service to House Lannister, though, not just villains like my father and his frothing dog. You may know a few of them, ser. Addam Marbrand, the Brax brothers, Lyle Crakehall…" In truth, they were more acquaintances of Jaime's than Tyrion's, but their names were knightly enough to give Ser Barristan pause.
"Should one or more- or all- die in Her Grace's attempt to retake the Seven Kingdoms, grudges will be held, surely."
"No less than they are here." Daenerys pointed out, looking unmoved. Tyrion shrugged.
"You were prying the whips out of hands that held them longer than the Seven Kingdoms have existed, Your Grace. Prince Oberyn has it right, this is not your place. The people who belong to it stopped existing when Ghis crumbled beneath the foot of the Freehold. Those who remain cling to a past long dead and long gone, I'd say they're due for a shift forward in time…or a shove. Westeros is not Slaver's Bay, though. Blood is not the way, not by itself." He thought carefully about what he said next. "The sigil of your house is not the Great Stallion nor a shield wall of Unsullied, neither is going to be what brings you home." Daenerys frowned. "The Conqueror had an army, true, but it was small compared to those arrayed against it. The sundry kings of Westeros had no dragons, though, and by hook or crook all bent the knee in time. If I may point out, the Westeros of today is not so different as when Aegon set out from Dragonstone. Kings pop up like crabgrass and anyone strong enough to wield a sword it seems has been dragged into the fighting. Your own army will be a welcome addition, but your dragons will be what win you what you most desire." She looked to Ser Barristan, who could only offer her his custom stoic long-suffering honorable air. It will serve her as well as it served Lord Stark, Tyrion knew.
"Tell them that." she finally said, sounding not at all Aegon the Conqueror come again.
Today I will look upon a dragon. The impending occasion had flattened any other thoughts he might have had, as a fat man might do sitting on an egg. Unless it was a dragon egg. When Daenerys Targaryen did not lead them out onto the terrace but back down through to the bowels of the pyramid, though, Tyrion frowned. Passing a heavy stall, he wondered that the creatures might be so tame as to linger until riled by their mother, but all that lingered within were three elephants musing sagely on the nature of a melon someone had slipped them. Muse on, grey wise men. The secrets of the world are not so easily revealed. Halfway down a low heavy stair, Tyrion heard a deep, rumbling roar. Prince Quentyn froze like a fawn in a direwolf's sights, but fascination had left no room for fear in Tyrion's imagination. He had long ogled the skulls of House Targaryen's past mounts beneath the Red Keep, spent hours wondering on the nature of dragons. I know well what it is to look into a skull's empty sockets. What will it be like to look a living one in the eye? The eunuchs that shadowed the queen always gave no sign they were discomfited as the air grew heavier, closer. Hotter, Tyrion observed. We are close now. They came to a great iron door, the eunuchs waiting without standing still as statues. "Open the doors." The queen commanded.
"Ser Barristan, remain outside. See that my soldiers are given water and call for the next watch."
"Your Grace." he nodded. The soldiers did not trouble themselves to open the doors all the way, settling for just wide enough for a person to slip through. Suggesting the dragons are not amenable to being kept in the dark. He expected an inferno beyond the iron doors or at least the flickering of flames, but only darkness waited for them. Daenerys took a torch from its sconce, gripping it a deal higher than Tyrion would have done. Fire and Blood, he thought.
"If Rhaegal should try for the gap in the doors again…" Daenerys told the nearest eunuch.
"Close them." he replied. Tyrion swallowed and he spotted a healthy amount of skepticism on even the Red Viper's face. He did not cross the Narrow Sea to wait at the threshold, though. No more than I did. He was afraid, of course, but not so much as might have been wise. I have waited for this all my days. But for my marriage to Arianne and whatever I'm to do about Sansa, what care I if these doors shut behind me? He noticed that the queen did not lead her ducklings down into the dark. She does not need them. Not down there. None of the Dornishmen moved to follow her, so Tyrion did.
The torch was too far down to be any real guide in the darkness, so Tyrion busied himself with descending at a speed an especially vigorous tortoise might have scoffed at. Bleed this, he thought, sitting on the stair beneath him and simply scooting down. I can hardly fall on my arse when I'm already perched upon it, now can I? In short order he caught up to the queen, making her go wide-eyed at the sight of him managing the last few steps with anything but lordly grace.
"Imp magic." he told her, making her mouth spasm. Trying to fight off a smile, he dared to think. It was very hot. The sounds of the Dornishmen coming down after him echoed most starkly off the unseen walls. Off in the darkness beyond the light of the torch, Tyrion thought he heard something like bones shifting on the bricks.
"Viserion." Daenerys called, loudly, her voice ringing off the far end of the deep pit. There came no answer. "Rhaegal." A snort behind Tyrion of all things had him whirling around, the Dornish lads all but leaping into each other's arms while the Red Viper stilled so as to rival one of the queen's eunuchs. A bright bronze glow alighted from the corner between the stair down and the wall of the pit, two eyes that glowered at them brighter than a forge. The queen said something in Valyrian, too fast and unpolluted for Tyrion to catch. The eyes blinked in what might have been understanding, though the commanding tone in the words did not seem to much move them. They looked up the sheer bricks of the stair to the door above, still open a crack. Tyrion saw green slits in the bronze pools widen at the glimpse of light beyond the iron. Whatever notice the beast might have taken of the Dornishmen was nothing in comparison. There was a heavy scratching, scraping sound. Claws against stone, softened by flame. The eyes snaked up the side of the stair, ascending slowly but steadily. So dragons can climb. The queen's call to her soldiers had the sound of iron bars squealing as they prepared to bar the way, the dragon's ascent stopping with a snort of irritation. He knows that they will try to stop him. It was too dark beyond the torch to see his own hands in front of him, and yet Tyrion was enthralled all the same. He had learned more in a living dragon's presence in five minutes and all but blindfolded than he had in years of admiring the Red Keep's skulls.
The queen made to address the dragon again, but its roar scattered her words and smashed them against the bricks. A furnace ignited beneath the eyes, one that had Tyrion averting his own. Daenerys was displeased. Her tone hardened and her words became more deliberate, Tyrion hearing 'heed' and 'come' as well as the dragon's name. They are named for her brothers, he realized. At least, these two.
"Your Grace," Tyrion asked, surprised words had not failed him in a dragon's presence, "forgive me, but I was told there were three. Are three."
"Drogon is not here." the queen answered, before Rhaegal snorted loud as a falling tree.
"I gather, then, that they know each other's names as well as their own." He turned away from the sun that had ignited halfway up the stair.
"I suppose. It never occurred to me whether to ascertain if they did or not, or how." A heat pressed down on him from above, heavy as a sack of stones. "Viserion." the queen called up, straining to raise her torch. Tyrion just caught a glimpse of a long nimble tail slipping out of the light. Cream, he thought, or bone. Fast. The dragon descended with a single flap of its wings, sniffing deeply. We are not men of a manner he is familiar with, he attempted to reason. What of it? What difference is there between a Dornishman and a westerman to a dragon? another part of him snapped. There was a louder, deeper snuffling, and then another furnace ignited not three feet from Prince Quentyn. "Frogs make for poor eating, unless one is a crannogman." Tyrion blurted at the light, hidden by rows of teeth. Daenerys brought the torch to bear, but by then Viserion had pushed past Prince Quentyn Martell, knocking him into Ser Archibald as the dragon snarled at Tyrion. His reflection was no less ugly than in a mundane mirror, but in the dragon's eye Tyrion's skin, hair and clothes had become purest unearthly gold, an ivory line cutting him in half. Viserion's head was bigger than a horse's and he had none of a horse's skittishness. Which stands to reason. Horses are prey animals. Dragons are not. Viserion snorted again, louder, the air in front of his nostrils a hazy shimmer. He is bored. Which also stands to reason. A horse will stand in its stable all day, but then, horses are stupid. Slowly Tyrion made for the edge of the torch's light, toward the teeth and the furnace lurking behind them. Dragons are not.
"Once," he found himself saying, throat hoarse from dryness or something else he could not say, "a very long time ago, lived a man called Lann, with golden hair and emeralds for eyes. He was a clever bugger, managing to pull Casterly Rock out from under the Casterlys using nothing but his wits. The Reachmen will claim he was some grandbastard of Garth Greenhand, but they're full of shit, as they are about most everything." Had they not been in the presence of two dragons, Tyrion credited that he might have earned at least a smirk from his Dornish companions. "Anyway, Lann's name clung to his descendants the way his hair and eyes did, and the lions of the Rock ruled the westerlands from the days of Lann's trickery forth. For thousands of years, or so they say, the Lannisters were Kings of the Rock, with naught above them but the gods. Then Lann's descendant Loren found himself across a battlefield from Aegon the Conqueror. Perhaps Lann's luck had run all the way to Loren's day, because though four thousand men and more died when Aegon and his sisters took wing, Loren himself was not among them. The days of the Kings of the Rock ended when he bent the knee to Aegon…and to Balerion, the Black Dread. A dynasty stretching long enough to touch the Age of Heroes, ended just like that." Tyrion snapped his fingers. The light in Viserion's throat had dimmed, though it still shone brighter than the queen's torch. "I must confess, I'm more than glad Loren was not too proud to bend the knee when the dragons came. When the westermen of today see you awing above them, they will bend the knee as well, and their great-gods-only-know-grandsons born a hundred generations from now will be just as grateful as I am now." Only when his focus left Viserion did the dragon make an uncooperative sound. Irritated, Tyrion dared hope, that the story had reached its end. He busied himself with helping Ser Gerris pull Ser Archibald to his feet. "I think we'll take our leave now." Tyrion said.
"Do then, my lord." Daenerys Targaryen said in a small voice. "I will follow when you have reached safety." It is not safety I seek. He led the Dornishmen up regardless, toes tingling as if he were walking on air. When he passed the iron doors, he started at the cold he felt. The Dornishmen came next, the Red Viper regarding Tyrion his characteristic maddening sphinxes' mask. When at last the queen emerged, neither dragon made to follow. "It is as Skahaz said." she murmured. "You can talk."
"Would that I could fly and breathe fire so well. I would happily carry you into battle myself." Tyrion replied. He turned to Barristan the Bold. "I find Lord Tywin Lannister no longer looms so large in my mind." Nor so tall.
"Why is that, my lord?" the old knight asked. 'My lord', he said. A start, I suppose.
"Because he's just another man, when all is said and done. Despite his efforts to prove the contrary."
"A man who can call upon the power of the west, and that as a start. That's a lot of men to contend with, even for you, dwarf." Ser Archibald intoned, the color slowly returning to his face. Tyrion gave a huff of laughter.
"All men are dwarfs in a dragon's eyes."