A/N: I hope everyone had a happy holiday. Chap 28 review responses are in my forums. And now...on to Leng. My descriptions of Leng are mostly my own invention based on what little I could find online. Where it conflicts with canon, consider it AU. Like everything else :)

Here's to 2024, and whatever it may bring.


Chapter Twenty-Nine: In the Ironwood

All the other ships fled the very moment the dragon appeared in the sky. The Attendant of the House of Knowing provided food for the terrified children while Thoros looked for any remaining ships that might be able to take them.

Taylor knew he would find no luck–the Laughing Lion was the only ship that remained.

"Mistress, Ghaoti says his tummy hurts bad."

Taylor turned her attention back to the ninety-two deeply traumatized children as they sat quietly eating. The girl who spoke to her, Sowilli, was a Summer Island girl of eleven. She was among the oldest of the children, and so took upon herself the role of caregiver for the others. She was one of the few who could talk to Taylor without open fear. The boy, Ghaoti, was one of the most pale of the lot–a Qartheen by ethnicity. She moved down the table of children until she knelt beside him.

"Turn around and let me see your tummy," she said gently.

He blinked back teary eyes and turned in his seat. He was seven, perhaps. He himself did not know his age. The Temple priests who purchased him intended him as a sacrifice, and so they never taught him.

She placed her hand on his painfully distended stomach, and like she expected he was suffering from terrible parasites.

"Come, you're going to need a night pail."

He took her hand as she led him to the ground floor privy. She touched his stomach without bothering with a spell, and then stepped out as he emptied his guts. "When you're done, return to the table."

Poor kid.

She was just returning to the others when Thoros returned with none other than Ser Gerion Lannister. The captain looked pale and ready to flee or fight when he saw her. "Taylor, was it?" he asked pointedly.

"That was the name I went by thirty-three thousand years ago or so," she said with a dry smile. "But you can call me Telos now that the need for disguise has passed. I have a problem, captain. These children deserve a chance to live. I intend to take them with me when I return to the Free Folk north of the Wall. But it seems the other ships fled. So, what will it take to get us west?"

"You killed my king," the knight sputtered. "You sailed under false pretenses and made me complicit in aiding you. There's a ten-thousand dragon reward for your head. Surely you don't think I'll help you? Even if you offered to give me back our ancestral sword, I wouldn't!"

Taylor glanced from Thoros back to Gerion. "And where is your ancestral sword?"

The captain sputtered. "Did ya not hear me?"

"I did. I just don't care. You are going to carry us, captain. Ordinarily I wouldn't push the issue, but I'm not going to let these children suffer for your self-righteousness. But I'm willing to compensate you. Where is this sword?"

Ser Gerion looked for a moment as though he might draw his sword, but then remembered what he saw less than an hour prior. "It was lost in Valyria centuries ago. The finest Valyrian steel. Gone before the Conquest."

"Very well. When we reach Valyria, take me ashore and I will find you a Valyrian sword."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Do you have provisions to see us away?"

The man looked at the children. "We'll be on rations. The return trip from Asshai is always tight. I'll have to sail to Turrani on Leng for provisions. We won't have the tide until next morning."

"Ser, since I no longer feel the need to hide my identity, there is also no need to pretend to be mortal. You will have the tide as soon as we're on your ship, because I will summon it. We will have a strong westward wind, because I will command it. If food runs short, throw nets and you will have fish aplenty, because I will call them. If the water runs out, I will drain the salt from the sea to replenish it. Do you understand?"

The entire time she spoke, Ser Gerions jaw dropped a little more. "And when I return to my home and am arrested and attainted a traitor?"

"Don't go home. You despise Casterly Rock, Gerion. It's written all over your soul–you've been running from your brother since you gained your knighthood. The Free State north of the Wall could use a captain like you, and if the prayers I hear at night tell me anything, it's that my people are doing quite well. If you arrive with almost a hundred newly freed slave children and my favor, you will not be a traitor. You will be a celebrated hero."

They left two hours later.

~~Voluspa~~

~~Voluspa~~

With their holds empty of all but their basic provisions, Taylor supervised arranging cots for the children along with the fifteen permanent crew. "It's important for children to feel useful," she told Ser Gerion on the evening of their first day. "So we need to find small tasks they can help with. I don't want them working more than two hours a day, but there are enough of them that two hours can help."

"I don't need a hundred fucking cabin boys," Ser Gerion said.

"You won't have them. Just think of small things they can do to help."

"Best they can do is stay out of the way."

"They will, in the morning. I'll be giving them lessons."

"Lessons? On what?"

"Math, reading, writing. History. Things all children in the Free State need."

Indeed, that next morning as the crew set about their tasks after a breakfast of hardtack in fish steam Taylor gathered the kids in the hull with Thoros and began the arduous task not just of educating them, but of giving them structure and some small hope that their lives were not over.

~~Voluspa~~

~~Voluspa~~

The small, sheltered bay of Turrani was one of the most beautiful places Taylor had ever seen. She almost wished she could have her natural eyes back. The bifrost augmented her native power to see the truth of things, but when she saw colors she saw the essence of that particular color rather than the greater beauty that only human eyes could translate from those various essences.

They arrived mid-morning. Ser Gerion had his sailors stow the sails and finished the journey with oars. Taylor stood on the side of the ship looking down into the purest, clearest water she had ever seen. Though it was deep enough to handle the draft of the Laughing Lion, the water was so clear and the sun positioned so perfectly she could see the sandy bottom and coral formations. Brilliantly colored fish darted back and forth from a pod of small, blunt-snouted porpoises.

Not even the crusty Ser Gerion could take issue with the laughter of the children as they pointed at the porpoises. One of the mischievous creatures popped its head out of the water. Come swim with us, mother! Its call was a high-pitched trill and whistle.

"Mistress, it speaks to you!" Sowilli laughed. "What does it say?"

"It recognizes me," Taylor told her and the other children. "It senses the ocean in my lineage. I am a granddaughter and grand niece of ocean gods, and these children of the sea can sense this."

The other children did not question. After three weeks of sailing in perfect conditions, with fish that almost jumped onto the deck, none on the Laughing Lion questioned her. Turning to Thoros, she said, "Keep watch on them?"

"My lady?"

Taylor winked at he and the kids and then jumped over the railing. She landed on the surface of the water with a bend of her knees while the ship sailed on toward its waiting berth. The children laughed and pointed at her, some crying her name. Standing free on the water, she waved at them with a smile before she let herself sink down into the warm, clear water.

Almost immediately, she felt the god of the island welcome her with a warm embrace. For the longest time, she could not move for the sheer power of the being; for its vastness and age. It was not a weirwood, though in the back of her mind she could feel that the weirwood gods knew of and recognized it.

She shared her joy at its welcome, and then lost herself playing with the children of the sea as the small porpoises gathered around her begging her to swim with them.

Time had no meaning in the sea. There was no up or down, only lighter or darker depending on the depth. And in the shallow, brilliant bay of Turrani, even that distinction lost meaning until finally the sun sank far enough into the east that the trees cast shadows over the water.

Toward the city, she saw with her bifrost eyes that Thoros had led the children off the ship to play in the shallow water of the beaches. She flowed through the water with the children of the sea to greet them. When two porpoises gave her a lift with their fins, the children screamed in excitement when she arrived and the animals sang their own high squeaky greetings.

"Their skin is so smooth!" That was Lobadae, a lanky Lazhereen boy a month or so younger than Sowilli. "What is that hole on their heads?"

"There are many types of animals," Taylor explained, making sure her voice reached every ear. "Some animals, like reptiles, have scales and lay eggs. You know of birds and fish. Frogs are called amphibians. Animals that give birth to live babies and make milk are mammals. Porpoises are mammals. Mother porpoises have babies in the ocean, just like your mother had you. They feed their babies milk, just like your mothers did. They breathe air, just like we do. But because they live in the ocean, their noses are on top of their heads, rather than at the tip of their face. That hole is where they breathe!"

The impromptu lesson led all the way to the sun setting. Unwilling to risk children in an unfamiliar port city, she and Thoros led them back to the Laughing Lion. To her surprise, Ser Gerion offered to watch them. "We're going to be here at least two days gathering provisions," he said. "My crew and I will watch them. Go see the city."

So, grateful for a chance to look for the name of the god that greeted her so warmly, Taylor and Thoros walked into the city of Turrani.

A Lengii man stood towering over Ser Gerion's quartermaster when she left the ship. The man seemed to be near seven feet tall, and wore bright gold leggings that reached down to his knees. His long, narrow feet were covered in open-toed sandals, and he wore a jewel-studded vest over a broad set of shoulders.

In the gloom, his dark skin seemed to blend into the shadows, but like a shadow cat, his gold inhuman eyes stared at her in surprise. The quartermaster turned when he saw the taller man's distraction, and let out a little eep. "Smith preserve us! Ye were under that water the whole feckin' day!"

"The children of the water wanted to play," she said. "How does one enter the city?"

The old sailor waived toward the massive trees that separated land from sea. "In the trees, m'lady."

She scanned the forest, and only then did she see the city itself. Turrani could have fit in its entirety into the Docks neighborhood back in Brockton Bay where she grew up. What set it apart was its almost Rudyard Kipling-esq structure.

The city rested at the top of a hill overlooking the bay that had been carved into a series of ramps and steps leading up from the wharfs. The steps felt ancient, and were made of the same black stone as Asshai. Fortunately, it held no demonic taint.

At the top of the hill were what Taylor took to be long, narrow tree houses. The trees themselves looked like odd, primitive throwbacks to the days of the dinosaurs. Instead of bark, the meter-and a half-thick trunk looked like they had scales. Each tree shot straight up, with few branches, until she saw a burst of fronds on top. When Taylor focused on them, however, she saw the fronds weren't leaves, but thick bunches of needle-like pines grouped around young shoots and branches.

There were hundreds, even thousands of the trees covering the top of the hill and extending back into a dense forest. Instead of clearing the trees, the people of Leng built their city among them, creating a fascinating and dizzying three-dimensional city of ropes, planks and platforms.

"What a beautiful place," she whispered. "The god of this island must love his children. I can see them now."

With a nod to the silent Lengiii giant, she made her way past the pier and the narrow row of support buildings necessary in any dock city, until she reached the rope ladders that led up the scaled bark of the primitive trees. Thoros followed.

"My Lady…I'm confused. You acknowledge the god of this place?"

"Thoros, the dragon I rode back to Asshai on was a god. The god of the Death of Dragons. It was he who reaped the souls of dragons to return their fire to his father, the Sun. I felt this island's god. It is ancient, powerful and wise. I've never claimed to be the only god."

"I see."

The air felt thick with humidity, and huge flies and mosquitoes buzzed around everything. She quietly asked the bugs to stay away from her and her companion as she began climbing up until she reached the first level of the tree-city.

Like a wave the incessant sound of haggling merchants, voices raised in praise or anger, or just absent singing, all went quiet as more of the residents saw her bifrost eyes.

For her part, she saw a strange, wonderful mixture of peoples of all description. Dominating the area where the Lengii themselves. They towered over the other people in this first level; even the women were as tall as if not taller than Taylor herself. They were not curvaceous or buxom women, though. To a one, every single woman she saw looked slim and athletic. The men all looked like powerful warriors, even those who sported impressively rounded bellies.

It felt almost like the set of a Golden-age Hollywood movie, filled with a cast of strikingly beautiful stars, and then all of the smaller, lesser extras.

There were many other peoples there as well–she saw dozens of milk-pale Qartheens, many sailors, but also merchants and food sellers. There were a handful of Westerners as well. However, the most common people were the Yi-Ti, who were short even by Essos standards, and were positively dwarfed by the Lengii.

Taylor had no coin; instead she nodded gently to the stunned watchers and slowly made her way into the city. Most of the foodsellers sold the bounty of the ocean–fried eel or fish, mango-like fruits and a brown, sticky rice. They had buns of brown flour made from that same rice, and occasional bits of island fowl. She stepped by one of the few Lengii food sellers, this one run by an ancient Lengii woman with wrinkled skin like cracked bark and white film over her golden eyes.

"What do my eyes not see, daughter? I hear silence moving like a person."

The language was unlike anything Taylor had ever encountered from humans, almost closer to Earthsinger's language than human tongues. Whistles, clicks and gutturals conveyed meaning almost as efficiently as a first tongue. The language was ancient, and more pure for it.

The food seller's daughter stepped out from the rows of coal-heated ovens and blinked golden eyes. She was maybe half a head taller than Taylor, and a folded cotton skirt that hung to her knees, and an open cotton vest that barely covered her chest. She wore it without any shame or sense of modesty.

"I see a pale Lengii, with eyes like cold stars shining forth. This is the one X!cotl sang of, swimming in the bay with the water-children."

"They called me to play, and it was a beautiful day," Taylor said in their language. "The gods of this island embraced me. I can feel their love for you, their children."

The younger woman looked shocked that someone not of their breed could speak their tongue. The old woman, less so. "The small ones speak of you. Telos, they name you. The Witch of Asshai. You bring death in your wake."

Taylor leaned forward toward the old woman, and with a wave of her hand cleared her eyes of their cataracts. "What is death but a shadow of life? Those I have killed were the servants of darkness. And it just so happened I met the Dragon god of death in the Shadowlands. Like your god, he embraced me as kin, and reaped the soul-fires of those who would do me harm. But you, Mother Mgutsa? You and your kin have nothing to fear from me. In all my travels, I have never seen such beautiful souls. I honor you, and your gods."

The old woman stared with clear eyes for the first time in many years. Taylor could see from her soul that she had seen more than a century and a half. The Lengii were as long-lived as they were tall. A tear ran down her withered cheek.

Without a word, she reached down to grab a large stuffed bun and offered it up with both her hands. "Thank you," Taylor said as she accepted the offering.

"Telos! My Lady, is this place not amazing?"

Thoros found her again, having lost her in his own study of the place, and stared about with wonder in his eyes. Taylor glanced at him with a smile, but took the old woman's hand in hers for a moment. "I needn't bless you," she said in the woman's language. "For the blessings of your god are already upon you. Fare well, Mother."

The woman blinked back more tears and bowed her head as Taylor let Thoros lead her further into the city, like a child excited to share all the wonderful things he'd seen and done. He didn't even notice the old food-seller; there was too much else for him to see.

"I wish outsiders were allowed in the interior of the island," the young priest said earnestly. "Ser Gerion warned me that visitors are only allowed in the Danji quarter of the city. He said anyone venturing further is killed without trial or appeal. So please, my lady, stay close."

The interior of the tree-house city was gloomy as night fell. Rather than torches, the Lengii used thick glass bowls filled with a bright, glowing blue water that cast a neon blue color across everything.

They wandered by a strange lamp that looked like glowing blue water. Taylor stepped up beside her and focused. "Huh. They're bugs."

Thoros blinked. "What?"

"Like little water fireflies, thousands of them. I bet that bay we docked in glows at night, too."

"How do you know?"

"My eyes see the truth of things."

The press of sailors coming from the docks in search of food or shelter for the night urged them forward. Wooden planks and rope bridges linked the various narrow tree-houses together in an almost solid platform for at least five levels up. Nor was it like a single, continuous floor like one might see in a modern city. Each tree grew at its own angle, and to its own height, and so each stack of apartments grew in their own fashion just as organically.

She and her companion fell in behind a group of Yi-Tish sailors who were heading toward a ramp leading up to the next level, each carrying bundles of material for trade.

When they reached that next level, Taylor realized the first level was nothing more than an entry hall. It was at this next level that she saw the rest of the people of Turrani. The city smelled of overripe fruit, woodsmoke and tightly packed humanity. Everywhere she looked were the glass jars of bioluminescent water bugs that illuminated the interior with a fabulous blue glow.

Thoros' robes clung to him as perspiration poured down his face from the thick, stifling air. He didn't care as he looked about with a childish wonder. All around, YiTi sailors moved about like ants among the giant Lengii, trading and talking and doing whatever sailors did in port.

She could hear a woman's moans punctuated by slapping flesh from one of the nearby tree huts. She felt a sense of amazement that Ser Gerion managed to resist the city, given his self-declared love of Lengi women.

Taylor ate the rice-flour bun the old foodseller gave her. It was filled with diced fish, mango, something approximating onion, and seasoning the Free People never had access it. It sang on her tongue with a riot of flavor.

As she meandered about the platform, she felt vibrations beyond that of the normal foot traffic in the floor planks. She turned to look through the blue-lit gloom of the narrow passage and saw a giant of a Lengii drop down onto her level. He had to have been at least seven and a half feet tall and stunningly beautiful to look at, with a broad, defined chest and muscles like Adonis. His chest was painted with a wild black-striped cat with golden eyes just like his own. The whole platform shook from his bare, heavily tattooed feet.

Though his painted chest remained bare, what clothing he wore looked richly luxurious. His bright purple silken culottes were pleated and ran down to the ankles, under which he wore light, flexible leather sandals that left the tops of his feet mostly bare. Like the curtains of a theater for the performance painted on his chest, he wore a cloth-of-gold vest studded with gems and pearls for buttons that barely fit around his broad shoulders, and a fez-like hat on his otherwise shaved head that made him look even taller.

"Khatoom! Khatoom!"

People all over the platform called the man's name. He must have been important.

Thoros rushed quickly to Taylor's side. "That is the natural spouse of the Empress of Leng," the priest whispered. "Her second spouse is always of Yi-Ti descent to preserve the peace with the Empire. Perhaps we should seek another…"

Khatoom stood tall and pointed one long arm directly at Taylor. "There! There is the Witch of Asshai!"

Khatoom spoke Yi-Tish, but his voice boomed out across the platform much louder than any native speaker. Four slightly shorter but still obscenely large and handsome men in similar, though less rich attire, left the giant's side and walked quickly toward her and her two companions.

The platform shook as the beautifully sculpted giant crossed to stand before her. Conversations died everywhere else in the city, because who would dare speak over this man? He turned to one of the slightly smaller giants that followed him.

In Lengii, he asked one of his companions about her. "Like a Lengii woman in size, the sailors said. But with pink skin and eyes like stars in the sky. This is the witch, no?"

"I'm not a witch," Taylor said, crossing her arms.

Khatoom stiffened; the men around him seemed shocked. Even Thoros looked surprised. For a moment, she wondered if there was some crazy rule about women talking. Then she remembered the island was ruled by a woman.

"You speak our tongue flawlessly," Khatoom said to her. While his Ti-Tish was accented, in his native tongue he sounded cultured and intelligent.

"I speak all languages, Mighty Khatoom." The epithet flowed almost unconsciously from her tongue, because it was a part of his truth. He was a consort of the God Empress, the leader of Leng's army and the mightiest warrior of his people.

It seemed to work. "A mighty feat indeed," Khatoom said with one elegant, raised brow. "What shall I call you, if you wish not to be known as a witch?"

"I am Telos of the Trees."

"And the short ones by your side?"

"My companion is Thoros of Myr."

The giant bowed his head to her, though he kept his eyes open and focused. "It is right and just that one such as yourself have those who follow. I am Khatoom! Husband-consort to the most holy and magnificent God-Empress of Lengii. My beloved and Most Holy has commanded your presence. You are to be afforded the highest honors and all comforts. Gold and food shall be yours. But your pet must remain behind for their own safety. Unless they are as powerful as you, the interior of Leng carries disease the little people cannot survive."

There were times in her life where Taylor felt compelled to act, as if by fate. She remembered when she was very sick, she still healed a little boy as she fled Morocco, though it almost killed her. She remembered the compulsion to create her own folksvangr from the hateful soul of a parahumn villain she'd reaped.

And she felt such a compulsion now. "I will be honored to accompany you." She turned back to Thoros. "The Empress has sent for me. He's telling me the interior bears lethal illnesses for you, but I believe it's more a matter of outsiders being limited. Stay with the children, Thoros. Gerion said he was going to sail to the north of the island in a day or so, right? I can meet you there."

"My lady, are you sure?" Thoros cast a distrusting look at Khatoom. "How can we trust them?"

Taylor smiled at the man. "Remember, Thoros. Their god welcomed me. I have nothing to fear here. But I need to go."

"We'll wait for you in the north of the island," Thoros promised.

Taylor nodded to the two before turning to face the breath-taking giant. "I am ready, Mighty Khatoom."

"Indeed! A great honor! Come, Telos of Trees!"

He turned, and the four giants with him bellowed out, "Make way for Khatoom!"

The Lengii around them picked up the change. "Khatoom! Khatoom!"

Taylor followed, genuine excitement and curiosity guiding her steps.