The next day dawned bright and hot. Though they were hidden from the sun within the Great Pyramid, all Tyrion could smell was sweat and he could hear the constant calls for water in the corridors without. There will be precious little room for water-bearers to move about the benches of Daznak's Pit today, he reflected. Somewhere beneath them, the dragons would be at their most active. They are not lizards, statues until they've seen the sun. he told himself. Their heat comes from within. Still, both from the queen's account and his own intuition, Tyrion concluded they much preferred hot days to cool.

"Up, ser." he prodded the massive prone form of Ser Archibald with his foot. More than one man will be feeling last night's wine in today's heat. The magic of being sober is proving most potent. "Drink, if he's not up in five minutes, fart in his ear. The sound ought get him up." Or the smell.

"Oughtn't we have a wash before we go before the queen today?" Ser Gerris asked doubtfully. Tyrion snorted.

"Fat chance of that. The Windblown will scarcely be seated in the royal box above the pit today. If anything, we'll be highest up. Able to catch a breeze if nothing else." Gerris Drinkwater gave a groan. This from a bloody Dornishman. He left the nannying of the knights to the frog prince, waddling over to the viper. "How fared you during yesterday's festivities?"

"You saw, my lord. I shouldn't help but wonder if our plum is thinking on home right this moment."

"As much as he is Yunkish gold. To count him won is to know him lost."

"Sellswords will be sellswords." Prince Oberyn replied, sweating no less than the rest of them but seeming rather happier despite it. Why oughtn't he be? Snakes love nothing more than heat. As for Tyrion, it would be monstrously hot beneath his rag and any water he might scrounge on the wat to the pit he knew he'd well be thankful for later. Even if I have to piss myself wedged amongst the black benches. He began with a cupful from a waterskin brought by a fulsome Dothraki girl who looked on Tyrion with great distaste, but spluttered incomprehensibly upon seeing Ser Archibald, finally gotten to his feet.

"I'll just take that…" Tyrion said, taking the skin while Arch turned red as an Astapori brick. The girl fled a moment later, Gerris still laughing as Tyrion took a second cup. "If the gods are good, we've endured the only farce we'll see today." he said glibly.

"If gods were good, my lord," Prince Quentyn replied from behind the big man, "they'd scarcely be gods."

Getting to the pit would have been impossible had Tyrion not the good fortune to count himself among the Tattered Prince's company. It seemed most everyone in Meereen was eager to see blood spill and from what Tyrion heard, the queen's new husband had become incalculably richer thanks to having the prescience to buy up every fighting pit in the city after it had been conquered by Daenerys Targaryen. How fortunate for him she agreed that the pits should reopen. Enriched thus, any further use Hizdahr zo Loraq might have had for his silver queen was nil. Her peace will last until the second some hidden knife guts her and then all will be as before, only with the House of Loraq and Hizdahr in particular considerably wealthier. At least Daenerys was not blind to what was going on. She all but told me to make this marriage last as briefly as possible. He wondered if Jaime had advised Tysha of the same. Not that it did her any good. Or most anyone. Had he not a city's worth of people all headed to the same place to contend with, he might have dwelled on that thought all day. Instead he busied himself with sticking close to Caggo, unmistakable in the throng, following him and the rest of the Windblown up the steps of Daznak's Pit. He'd have sooner sat nearer the queen if truth be told, but even the Tattered Prince was not afforded that privilege.

"On, wretch. The captain's not going to fetch his own water." one of the Windblown snapped at him, giving him a shove- and Tyrion was amazed to find he had to playact stumbling a bit, so well had the sellsword feigned it. Gods, if nothing else, a fair few of these Windblown would make for master mummers.

"Your pardon, I got-"

"You'll get worse if you don't move." the man growled. Tyrion hurried up to the last row of benches, apologizing his way across them before he found a small space waiting for him on the Tattered Prince's left side.

"Captain-general." he bowed as well as he was able given the limited space.

"Never mind all that, else you want tossing into the pit." Caggo said, picking Tyrion up with a single huge hand before he mashed him into place. Now I know how a nail feels. More Windblown quickly began to sit around their captain, the buffer amplified by the steadily rising volume of the crowd.

"How did the plums sit, my prince?" Tyrion said, their circumstances ensuring they would not be overheard.

"Sweeter than any dish that Yunkai could serve, most certainly…but I cannot help but worry they may sit uneasy."

"Wise, captain-general. Plums are treacherous, but a bite of blood orange will help matters. Any queasiness that may come will pass quickly." And everyone knows Dorne has the best of those.

"That's when they're most like to go wrong inside. I'd like very much not to perch on a chamber pot from dusk to dawn."

"As you say, if I spot any blood oranges, I'll be sure to fetch them hence." There was nothing for it but for Arch to stand at the top of the stair, the space allotted the Windblown too small to allow for both Caggo and himself. And thankfully Ser Archibald is not stupid enough to go belly-to-belly with a seasoned killer.

The bloodletting began. Tyrion could scarcely see over the head of the man in front of him, much less the pit itself, but he heard when the crowd roared the end of one pit fighter or the victory of another. And with every death Hizdahr zo Loraq grows wealthier. All while the flux burns like a wildfire outside this city's walls, and perhaps within it now everyone in Meereen's gone shoulder to shoulder. He was not wrong to worry about the heat, either, soon finding himself sopping beneath his sellsword's leathers. Tyrion shook himself, blinked away a sudden fugue and tried to focus on the sounds of the crowd. Their roars and cheers quieted in time but the heat did not subside. Even the mention of dwarfs could not keep his head from swimming. The laughter that replaced the roars echoed from everywhere, even within him, An irrepressible urge to vomit came over Tyrion so quickly he turned to do so over the bricks that kept those highest from the pit from simply falling backward to their deaths. He never made it that far, pulled backward into the crowd and tumbling through the successive walls of bodies. All while people shouted and cursed, Tyrion dizzily made note of the colors of the benches. Black, purple, blue, green, white, yellow, orange, red, he thought, before bounding clear over some ancient Yunkish lord barely taller than he was to land on the hot sands below. Only at the last moment did he remember to tear away his rag before loosing a deluge of bile, feeling absurdly thankful he had not done so cramped amidst the Dornishmen. Getting to his knees, he watched the world continue to spin. He gawped as a towering knight in Barathon black and gold sauntered near, riding a handsome chestnut destrier. Tyrion blinked the sun out of his eyes and beheld a dwarf in cheap mummer garb mounted on a dog. And if I were to blink again, I'd see the Maiden showing me her tits, he thought, wondering if he hadn't perhaps opened his head during the fall. Looking past the dwarf (knight?) he saw an ugly man naked for a breechclout clumsily running across the sand, fleeing another dwarf bedecked in red and gold and mounted on a sow of all things. The part of him that wasn't knocked senseless was so confused he could barely register the Baratheon knight (dwarf?) blathering at him in an anxious girl's voice. Then the gate at the far end of the pit opened and Tyrion heard a sound. Hear Me Roar indeed. Should I live, I might comment on Hizdahr zo Loraq's exquisite timing.

The lions shimmered as they stalked toward him, a lioness fanning left and a subordinate male taking the right flank. The leader held the center, a splendid-maned older male they would have heard roar across the Narrow Sea. The sow let out a frightened squeal and fled across the pit, leaving a streak of brown behind her while her rider fought to stay mounted. The dog let out a single bark, the younger male lion snarled and the old cur was fleeing right after and in much the same manner. The ugly man was cursing, throwing clumps of red sand, but Tyrion had eyes only for the lion in the center. That he was not fleeing with all the grace a chicken might display upon losing its head seemed to take the king of beasts a bit aback. Even when he roared again, Tyrion did not run. For what and to whom? Delirious as he was, he knew Myrcella was safe at Sunspear, as was Arianne. What can death take from me that life has not already? The heat began to build, the lion's mane a thousand resplendent hues of shimmering gold. Do you expect me to run, Your Grace? To flee at the sight of your teeth, claws, coat and all the rest? I've heard 'The Rains of Castarmere' too many times for that bloody song to make me do anything but groan. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lioness slinking toward the pig. In his mind's eye he could see Cersei swilling every vintage to come within reach and yet have the gall to call Tyrion himself a drunk. He could see her mating freely with every villein to enter into House Lannister's service to slake her own desires, and yet Lord Tywin rebuked Tyrion for whoremongering. Cersei has more in common with the squealing side of bacon than that lioness. He took in the sight of the subordinate male cornering the dog. In his head, he could see Jaime doing everything Lord Tywin commanded of him, obeying to the letter no differently than frothing dogs like Gregor Clegane. Jaime had put his sword through the king he was meant to ward against all harm's back, and yet Lord Tywin accused Tyrion of having a treacherous nature. Jaime has more in common with the barking rug than with that lion. Even as the older male continued to advance through the haze of heat rising off the red sand, Tyrion made no move to flee. He fancied he could see more than a little of the Lord of Casterly Rock in the golden snarl before him. Is it the chase you're after? Well. How sad for you, that I am not a sow. How sad for you, that I am not a dog.

The heat built so that Tyrion could hear his leather boots searing on the sand.

"Why am I not yet dead?" he asked the beast before him, whose nose twitched more than once. Then the sand between them was swirling, sinking out of sight into a hidden hole. Tyrion heard stone crack as the heat beneath his feet built again, the lion before him yelping as it hastily beat a retreat. The hole opened wider, Tyrion backing away himself rather gracelessly. It felt as though a Harrenhal-sized kitchen's worth of ovens had all fallen open mid-roast. Either the lion's impatience or hunger got the better of him then, because he made to bound over the hole- and promptly got swallowed in a golden gout of fire that made his coat look nothing more than straw. The corpse fell into the hole and Tyrion heard a crunch. Viserion's head snaked from the hole with the lion's upper half still stuck in his teeth, its eye burst from its head. The dragon squinted in the sun even as people screamed and shouted, burbling to himself as he peered about chewing on his bounty. The other lions had rather forgotten about anything but fleeing, springing up to try and make it into the benches away from the dragon and the hellish heat. Viserion watched them dash about for a moment before he lanced them as well, fire easily able to reach them even at their furthest. Stones scattered and sand flew as he pulled himself free, a thick collar and single link all that remained of the vast chain that had held him previously. The squealing of the pig got his attention next, the dragon turning quickly toward the sound. His ivory pupils widened in their golden orbs at the sight. "Here." Tyrion said, before he could stop himself. But Viserion would not be so easily distracted from an easy meal. Rather than do something truly idiotic like pull his tail, Tyrion instead ran over to where the lioness' corpse smoldered. "A knife!" he called up, and half a dozen of the things rained down. Well, if nothing else, we're giving the mob a show. Quickly he sliced a sizzling handful of gristle off her flank. I suppose it might help that my stomach is empty. With a bite, he knew that to be a fool's thought, tasting more ash than cooked meat. However, he kept at it, gnawing as loudly as he could all while ignoring Viserion's curious burbles coming up behind him. Only when the dragon's snout gave him a prod that had Tyrion feel like he'd been poked with a lit torch did he turn, gristle and grease running down his chin. "Look, it's just as good." he said, lying through his teeth. I wonder, if I gag will he realize the ruse?

At last Viserion snatched the dead lioness away from Tyrion, teeth closing down on her as if she were a carrot. Though I doubt dragons will much go for carrots. He staggered off, the benches above bending and whirling into drunken rainbows. A shadow passed overhead. Thank the gods, Tyrion thought as he went onto his back, the heat in the pit doubling and more. He turned his head and vomited again, rolling away sluggishly and coating his face in hot red dust. With a monumental effort he forced himself up into a sitting position. The sprawling black shadow before him shuffled over to where the other lion's carcass smoked, snapping it up without a second thought before two massive red eyes alit from within the center of the mass, slowly drawing nearer. Tyrion watched a silver sliver dart into view, chirping up at it excitedly. The shadow tripled in size and the oncoming wingbeats almost put Tyrion on his back again. The tiny light in the darkness scrambled atop it but if it spoke, Tyrion could not hear for the chaos roiling around him. A deluge had him crying out as he fired to his feet, mouth going faster than even he could catch as he looked at the smoldering ruin that remained of Daznak's Pit. The benches had all but emptied in what he suspected had been no little hurry, with Unsullied carrying corpses down for burning. Looking around, Tyrion found a new pair of eyes watching him closely, though these were big and brown. "What the fuck…" was all he could think to say.

"They've gone, dwarf. Her Grace and the black." Kandaq's curt, brutal voice issued from behind him. Tyrion turned to see men in brass masks pooling into the pit behind their commander, prodding the fallen with the butts of their spears to see if any remained alive. Tyrion closed his eyes, tried to center himself while Kandaq appraised him. "You were supposed to be a clever man. What's a clever man doing wrapping his head in leather on a hot day, surrounded by bodies, at the top of a great stair above a fighting pit?" I fell, Tyrion realized. Through the crowd. Into the pit, like he says. He gave a strangled little half-laugh. Just in time to join my fellow dwarfs. Then they loosed the lions. He looked to the blackened sands where the cats had fallen, little more than glistening grease all that remained of the king of beasts. Tyrion swallowed. How lucky for me, that I am not a lion.

There was an ungodly amount to do, for certain, but Tyrion felt it was difficult to cling to one line of thinking for more than a few minutes at a time.

"Heat-mad. It will pass. It should, anyhow. If not, you're about as useful as piss-flavored wine." Kandaq informed him. Bronn would like this one.

"What about the other, the cream-and-gold?" Tyrion finally asked, though there were half a hundred inquiries fighting to be second off his tongue.

"He went up after the black, but didn't follow them north." Kandaq gave a truly ugly smile. "Instead he landed atop the pyramid of Uhlez and roasted anyone who came at him with sword or spear. Now that line begs in the street same as the freedmen while he makes himself comfortable." Tyrion swallowed.

"And the green, did he emerge from the hole?" Kandaq's smile became a grin. "The same song but with a different refrain, Yherizan this time."

"I will need to talk to both." The Shavepate snorted.

"The dragons?"

"The families. As for the queen's noble Yunkish guests and their firm allies-"

"Shit on the queen's noble Yunkish guests. Yurkhaz zo Yunzak lies trampled into the bricks and good riddance, but the rest of that piss-yellow city's nobles are in an uproar. You'd have thought he was Grazdan the Great come again, the way they mourn and demand vengeance." They would, Tyrion mused as the stars began to twinkle into sight overhead.

"Well, I suppose it's not all bad." he reasoned as he looked for the others in the pit, the jousters and their ugly companion.

"Not all bad? The Yunkishmen are on us like flies on shit, more swords arrive by the day-"

"So they are and so they do, but at least we've not got to continue with our mummery. This peace between Daenerys Targaryen and slavery was inked in piss and on a privy rag, better just to burn it and start a bit of honest fighting." That was evidently not the reply Skahaz mo Kandaq was expecting. "It will be Uhlez and Yherizan first." Tyrion said in a low voice, the Shavepate listening carefully. "We must yet jingle something twinkly in front of the cat a moment longer, and that will do. Then we must have whoever is bold enough to speak for hallowed Yunkai, and her sellswords as well. They will waste time arguing among themselves, thinking they'll catch us unawares. This lord or that will hold command before his peers oust him, and all the while the sellswords will look on, quite wondering if Yunkish gold is worth facing dragons for." All four commanders had been on the black benches. High enough to be spared the heat, but close enough not to miss the show. Hopefully the Dornishmen had seen fit to stay put. "I shouldn't wager that more than one commander is asking himself that searching question right this moment." Kandaq eyed the hole in his face for a good while.

"If we're going to get as much sound counsel out of those two dwarfs as we have with you, this war is won." he quipped, following a man in a cobra mask.

Tyrion beheld the pair of dwarfs clinging to each other and their animals in a forgotten (though luckily unburned) corner of the pit. Their pet brute lingered nearby, seeming in a daze.

"Get that man water." Tyrion told a passing man in a mantis mask. The guardsman looked.

"He don't need it."

"Everybody needs out in this heat."

"Ain't the heat has him teetering, dwarf. He can get his own bloody water." the mantis said before moving off. Whatever else happens, I am still a dwarf. That thought followed him as he waddled over to the others.

"Are you alright?" he asked the pair. Up close and without heat all but boiling his brain, he could see them for what they were. A pair of penniless mummers in little more than rags. Even the sigils are wrong. They faced the wrong way, the legs were all askew…but he thought better of lecturing them on Westerosi heraldry. He had to help the one in Baratheon colors free his face, starting when he beheld the biggest pair of brown eyes he'd ever seen staring at him. It was the sort of face farmers dreamed of coming home to. Well, when not scrunched up to fit a dwarf's face. And what have you to say of beauty anyhow, lord dwarf? Compared to you, anyone's fucking beautiful. The dwarf girl's lip quivered, the one in Lannister heraldry pulling off the last of his mummer's rags and shuffling over.

"You're no slave." he said, in a voice much deeper and rougher than might be expected of a dwarf.

"That I am not." The gods have spared me that much, at least so far. The rough-spoken dwarf looked at his compatriot.

"We're Groat and Penny-"

"We've seen you before." The female dwarf sounded no different than any other peasant girl. Unlettered, scared and confused, that is.

"You have?" Tyrion was astonished.

"At the big wedding."

"Oh." Tyrion felt himself deflating a bit, for some reason. "Yes, well, it all ended rather badly. If anything, I'm glad someone got clear of that debacle." Other than Sansa Stark. Their "pet" turned out to be especially muscled, if covered in bruises and cuts. He looks as though he's been beaten halfway across the world. "Is he mute?"

"No, he's our bear. Groat…well, Oppo's supposed to be the handsome knight who saves me from him."

"Not much of a talker, though." Oppo said, looking up at him distastefully.

"He's not really part of our act. He just got bought with us, I suppose Yezzan thought he was with us just because he was nearby." Penny said.

Tyrion gave the man another look.

"Well, you've got hair enough to pass for a bear…"

"Go jump down a well, dwarf." the man grunted. His face was a mass of matted hair and a demon's-mask brand, but the voice was one Tyrion had heard before, or come as close as without hearing it in person.

"And to think I might find blood of Lord Commander Mormont's in a Meereenese fighting pit. How interesting these times are." That got the man to look at him. "Yes, I chanced to enjoy his company for a few days while visiting Castle Black. I was already at Winterfell, I figured a few miles more north would have me taking in the sight of the Wall without any harm being done. More fool me. The small matter of a war or two starting much maligned my attempts to return to the capital, but I managed in the end."

"Wars will do that." He brooded for a moment, as Tyrion had come to expect from northmen. They'd bloody brood on what to have for breakfast. "I am Ser Jorah Mormont, his son."

"So you are. I'd love to hear how you ended up in Daznak's pit, but perhaps later, when we're a little less exposed." And your hairy arse isn't hanging out of that breechclout. While Mormont followed readily enough, the dwarf girl squeaked.

"But Yezzan-"

"Stuff Yezzan zo Qaggaz with a red-hot pike." Mormont grunted. "But only after Nurse has got it first." Tyrion let Mormont go, turning to Oppo.

"This Yezzan, was he your master?" Oppo nodded.

"One of the Yunkish lords. The fattest man I'd ever seen, and he stunk of some Sothoryi rot."

"Well, there's a reason anyone with half his wits leaves Sothoryos to the Sothoryi." Tyrion replied. "One of the pit fighters is Sothoryi, I believe. Imagine a world so shit you'd want to come to Daznak's Pit." Oppo seemed umoved, but Penny paled.

"Another wanted to buy our bear, but the bidding grew too high."

"Another yellow lord?"

"He weren't no lord, at least not birthwise." Oppo chewed on his lip as they followed Mormont from the pit. "I couldn't figure what might make a fighting slave worth what they were bidding…"

"Who was the bidder?" Tyrion prompted again. Oppo squinted as they made the darkness of the tunnel, half the torches on the walls having been knocked over by panicking pit hands.

"Some sellsword, I think. Had a look like he had half a hundred different lands in his veins." Tyrion raised a brow and he smiled in the darkness. Now Lord Plumm, whatever would you want to buy Jorah Mormont for unless you planned to worm back into the queen's graces anyhow?

"No less?" he asked, as if it were odd indeed but otherwise mundane.

"Are we not going back to Yezzan, then?" Penny asked, leading the sow and dog.

"Oh, I think better accommodations can be found for such talented mummers in the Great Pyramid." Tyrion replied. And I would know all that was said around you and about you by big, tall men who forget that dwarfs have ears.