章節 3: A Unicorn and a Dragoness
[Outside Astapor. 20th and 21st day of the 8th moon. 299AC]
It took her ten days to secure her rule after the Fall of Astapor and another ten to prepare the army, including those that wished to travel with said army, to march down the dragon roads onto Yunkai.
Surprisingly, the half-trained Unsullied boys chose to take up different fields of expertise. Not all, only a few. There are now over a thousand studying under the scribes, three hundred with tailors, another two hundred with the smiths, and another thousand started learning under the shipwrights. The remaining two thousand five hundred chose to continue their training because they were older and it was harder to learn new things.
'Don't call them one-trick ponies, Dany,' she thought. Her men were some of the most dangerous in Essos, matched only by the Iron Legion, the Fiery Hand, and those badass warrior ladies on the Bone Mountains. She would like to see the Bone Mountains one day, to see everywhere one day. 'Maybe when my sons are grown.'
A little over a hundred marched into Astapor almost a moon ago, but a little over twenty thousand marched out with her. It felt incredible to ride at the head of an army, and she could only imagine how it would feel when she flew overhead astride Drogon.
When they made camp that evenfall, after she had trained with bow, spear, and sword, Missandei filled her a bath and washed her back. The boiling water soothed her aching muscles, and the soap and cloth Missandei rubbed on her neck and shoulders gave her ample comfort.
"My Queen, if I may?" Missandei spoke so suddenly that Daenerys nearly lept from the tub; she had almost fallen asleep!
"You may," she said, reaching for her glass of wine—a sweet red, the best she had ever had. Rakharo had snagged it from the man she'd sent him to kill.
"If it is not too much, could I-" Missandei looked abashed as she stuttered the words. "M-May I play with Viserion again?" Daenerys laughed, and she laughed loudly too.
"Of course, you can, sweet thing," Daenerys said after she calmed herself, turning in the bath to look at Missandei, her arms on the rim of the tub and her head in them. The smile on Missandei's face was beaming, and Daenerys couldn't stop her own from spreading. Missandei had one of those smiles; her friend could almost get a smile from the Unsullied. "But why ask only about Viserion?"
Missandei looked hesitant to answer. "Because he lets me, My Queen."
"Hmm, it seems I'll be having a stern talking-to with my other two children," Daenerys said, only half-joking.
"Perhaps a spanking, My Queen?" Missandei joked.
"Why, aren't you bold?" She blushed, and Daenerys laughed loudly again.
Waking the next day, she found the softness of her mattress far too pleasant to leave. Her silk sheets covered only from her waist down, her bare back exposed to the tent. She felt the wind gush through the entrance and her skin prickled with gooseflesh. 'How the fuck is it cold?' When she opened a single eye, she glimpsed the sun cresting the horizon as the tent flap closed.
Missandei strode into the tent, looking at Daenerys. In her hand was a silver tray with delicious-looking food and a pitcher of that lovey wine Cleon had graciously given her.
Remember that man she'd sent Rakharo to kill?
That was Cleon, the butcher who would be king.
Daenerys turned over in her bed, and Missandei averted her eyes. She slipped her nightgown over her head. "You help me bathe, Missandei; no need to be flustered," she said, smirking when Missandei looked at her, a pink tint on her nose and ears.
"I thought My Queen would be hungry," Missandei stuttered.
"Don't be timid, sweet," Daenerys said, patting the bed. "Come. Break your fast with me, Missy."
"Thank you, My Queen, but I have already eaten-" there was an audible rumble, and by the redness of her face, Daenerys knew that Missandei knew it was her stomach just as much as Daenerys did.
Daenerys pet the mattress again, smiling. "Sit. Your friend asks it of you." She saw the way Missandei's face lit up. The beaming smile, the sparkle in her golden eyes, and the way she twisted the ring on her finger.
They ate from Daenerys's plate, japing and laughing as they fed each other grapes and peaches, cheese and yoghurt, and drank sips of sweet wine. They talked a little about Yunkai, Daenerys asking what Missandei knew of the city and finding she disliked it even more than Astapor.
Ser Jorah came in just as they were finishing up. "Khaleesi," he bowed, not wanting to see her in her sleepwear. "We are ready to march. You need only command it."
"Thank you, Ser. Well, Missandei, what do you have for me to wear today?" She nodded to Ser Jorah as Missandei smiled and stood up. "You ride with me today. Belwas and Barristan are to watch that one." Ser Jorah bowed and told her that he would inform his brothers of her orders.
When Missandei came from behind the curtain, she had a creme sleeveless blouse in hand, a light grey pair of breeches, high black leather boots, a balaclava to protect her from the dust, and boiled-black fingerless gloves.
She dressed before Missandei helped her with her hair. It was shorter now, around shoulder length; she usually tied it back and let the rest flow freely. But with Missandei as her handmaiden and friend, she had someone to teach her how to braid her hair correctly. Though, Daenerys would much prefer Missandei to do it from now on. Her friend could make her shorter hair seem simple yet elaborate, loose but secured.
It's a magic Daenerys will never understand.
No sooner than she had dressed did a group of Unsullied come to pack her things and dismantle her tent. As she rode at the head of the party, she asked Ser Jorah about the merchants that followed her to Yunkai. They are lizards, he told her. They are lizards that would sell information for the pettiest sum.
Daenerys trusted him wholeheartedly on that. She had seen the greedy way these lizards eyed the treasure, her dragons, and even her. Only one of them she liked—a kind old smith from Qohor.
Later, when the sun was low, they made camp on the Worm River. She could hear the soft music from the pleasure barges drifting up and down the river, the laughter of some of the men and women in her party from where they made camp and her dragons' songs as they flew overhead.
She glanced at the pleasure barge drifting by briefly and glimpsed a silver-haired woman on the deck, watching her, but when she looked again, a dark-haired girl with a suggestive smile on her plump pink lips stood leaning on the railing instead. 'Fuck was that?'
She saw the sword coming at the last second and went to block it; the shock from the impact sent pain down the length of her arms. She grunted, cursed, and jumped back. Ser Barristan corrected her stance, "Spread your feet. Yes, like that. Always keep them shoulder-width apart with one foot or the other facing forward. Pardon my blunt words, My Queen, but you are small. That is not a bad thing; a smaller, quicker target, I find, is far more likely to out sword a larger, slower one."
It had taken almost a moon (since he had come into her service) to get Ser Barristan to agree to train her alongside Grey Worm, but in the end, after realizing that Daenerys wasn't going to drop this, the old knight relented. Though, she preferred the spear because it felt comfortable in her hands; the sword felt unnatural. Why that was, she didn't know, but she didn't give up despite that.
That was how her days went, her routine. She would wake up before the sun even rose fully, and break her fast, most days with Missandei or her bloodriders; they would march until the sun was low, set up camp, and she would speak to some of the merchants, spending some coin if only to show them that she had money to spend. She trained each night by the river, one day with Ser Barristan, the next with Grey Worm, and finally, she would bathe and speak to Missandei before going to bed, wrapped up by her dragons.
'Cuddly buggers,' she thought as Drogon yawned before laying his neck on her chest, licking her chin with his forked tongue. Rhaegal's tail curled around her thigh; he was the smoothest of her children, so she liked the feeling. She gasped when his tail moved up. "You are going a little too far, you fucker," she warned, but her lazy son did not react, only snoring even louder.
She heard the snort and turned her head to the right, where Viserion lay, his head on the pillow as if he were human. Daenerys reached out and stroked his long, slender neck gently. Drogon's throat rumbled against her chest. She inhaled sharply, "Gods be good! Are you two doing that on purpose? Stop chuckling, Vissie."
Never mind that.
After all the marching, the planning, and the sparring, her body ached every night, and it would be worse in the morning. But despite that, Daenerys got up and marched, planned, and spared every day.
'Who knew being a Queen could be so much fun?'
—————
[Outside Yunkai. 30th day of the 8th moon. 299AC]
She changed her mind.
Being Queen is not a very fun job.
What was the subject of her annoyance on this humid day? You ask. She just finished reading a letter informing her that the Wise Masters will send a representative to speak to her on the Yunkai'i's behalf...in three days.
Days!
Holding the letter over the fire, the orange light of the flame enhanced the violet glow in her narrowed eyes. The letter crumpled, blackened, and blew away in the wind. She and her men had set up camp a day ago, and all she got was a letter telling her to wait another three days.
'Somebody is dying soon,' she thought darkly, her eyes dragging to the entrance of her tent. Outside, she saw the broken sword banner of the Second Sons and the four crows between crossed lightning bolts of the Stormcrows flying in the dip, two or three leagues from where she had set camp atop the hill.
Both companies of sellswords numbered a little over a thousand mounted cavalry. It seemed as though the Wise Masters were underestimating her. 'Or they just don't have any more soldiers.' Yunkai's forces numbered barely five thousand slave soldiers, giving the defence of Yunaki two thousand fewer men than she had, not counting the poorly-trained freedmen from Astapor. She could storm them if she wished; they would stand no chance against her Unsullied. But killing slaves who had no choice but to obey their orders would look bad on her record.
So, with that in mind, she sent for representatives of each of the sellsword companies. They would be here later that day, so she trained early in the morn instead of at dusk as she usually did.
Speaking of training;
Daenerys felt her feet go out from under her. She dropped her blunted sword and fell harshly to the ground, grumbling in pain. "Focus on your opponent, My Queen," Ser Barristan said. She was sure she would have received a clip on the ear if she wasn't his Queen. "However, you must also be aware of your surroundings at all times."
'Gods,' she wanted to knock him on his old ass once. 'Fuck it, why did I join the army if I'm never going to use what I learnt?'
She spun on her back, kicked his legs out from under him, and rolled onto his chest, her knee pressed under his chin as she pulled the dirk from her belt and raised it. Spinning her dagger in her hand, she brought it down fast. Ser Barristan's blue eyes looked left, his head still, and she saw the shock on both the reflection's and his eyes. 'Was I always that quick?'
"Focus on your opponent, Ser Barristan," she smirked and saw the shock wash away, replaced by a smile that wrinkled the skin around his eyes. Daenerys stood up and offered him a hand, helping him to his feet when he took it. She bent down and pulled her dagger from the ground before looking up at him, grinning at the pride in his eyes.
"Well done, Your Grace."
"Thank you, Ser."
"Your Grace, may I ask where you learnt that?" Ser Barristan asked.
"Back in Astapor, I found a book on martial arts from all over the Known World," it wasn't a complete lie. She DID find a book about that. "This one stuck with me the most as, as you can see, I am not very big." She was barely five and a half feet tall, but Ser Barristan had told her she was quicker than anyone he'd trained.
"It is always good to have tricks up your sleeve," he told her, and she nodded.
"My Queen," Daenerys turned at the call. Missandei stood with her hands in front of her just a few away from the training area. "The bath you requested is ready."
"Thank you, Missandei." She looked at Ser Barristan. "We'll speak more on this later, Ser."
"As you say," Ser Barristan bowed, smiling, before Daenerys walked to her tent, Missandei trailing behind.
Once inside, she undressed from her sweaty clothes and got in the tub. The scalding water instantly relieved her aching muscles. She sighed, closing her eyes and smiling. This heat would surely make grown men squeal, but she found it relaxing. Targaryens are naturally resistant to heat, after all, and her even more so.
'Apparently, we don't get sick either,' she thought suddenly, not remembering ever having been sick. 'No. That's not true. I got sick back in Bravavos. Is it my dragons?' She'll have to look into this more at a later date.
Missandei washed her hair and ran a soapy cloth along her neck and shoulders as Daenerys sipped a glass of wine, popping a grape into her mouth. As she soaked and Missandei messaged her shoulders, Daenerys thought of her current escapade.
When Yunkai fell to her, they would stay for a moon or two, three if necessary, before continuing onto Meereen. She followed the course the original timeline Daenerys took closely, only weeding out the seeds of rebellion with Cleon, but after Meereen was hers, she would need to decide where to go. Volantis was the closest, but it had a decent amount of risk.
The city had the Fiery Hand to defend it along with a powerful fleet and close relations with the Free Cities. No doubt word is already spreading of her moves in Astapor, shaking up Essos and leaving the Masters on edge.
She just hoped that fucking spider didn't know about her dragons yet. But she doubted that. 'Fucker probably knew about them before I even got the eggs.'
It's times like these that make her think being the Promised Prince could be beneficial. The Red Priests would worship the ground she walked on, and their Fiery Hand would burn those who sullied that ground. But fighting those icy bastards head-on was not something she wanted to do. 'Let it be Jon, please, you pink-and-green-suit-wearing motherfucker, let it be Jon Snow!'
She felt a headache. 'Hey, fuck you too!'
Daenerys scowled and sank into the water. Only the top half of her face was above the steaming water, her eyes following Missandei as she prepared some perfumes. A cold breeze blew through the tent, and the moonlight added a glow to Missandei's skin. Her thin dress moved up her thigh and off her left shoulder, quickly catching it before it slipped off entirely.
'Holy...fuck,' Daenerys thought, breathing out her nose, making the water bubble.
"My Queen," Missandei suddenly turned around. Daenerys sat up abruptly, causing water to spill out over the rim. She looked at Missandei, hoping her face wasn't too red, and let out a meek hum. "Which would you prefer today?"
"The rose one. Yes, that one. Thank you, Missandei."
—————
[Outside Yunkai. 30th day of the 8th moon. 299AC]
Grazdan Mo Eraz, Master of Men and Speak to Savages.
What an ugly cunt.
He was tall, taller than even Drogo had been, and lanky. His eyes were sunken copper and heavy black bags under them; his hair was brown, drawn up in front of his head in the shape of a unicorn horn. When he gave a false smile, she noted he had whitened teeth with a single gold one. How she had not laughed when Missandei introduced him, Daenerys didn't know.
'The way he sits is pretentious,' Daenerys thought as she crossed a leg over the other, sipped her wine, and stared directly at the man. Though he avoided her eyes, much preferring to look between her dragons. Viserion perched on a trunk they had brought from Astapor, and Rhaegal rested on the sofa, his head on Daenerys's lap as she gently stroked his snout, much to his delight. Drogon glared daggers at the man from his place by Daenerys's feet.
She could feel the fear the man had for her children. It was the newest aspect of her power she had opened to herself. So far, she could only sense fear if directed at her or something deeply connected to her. Looking at Grazdan, it was like a glass filled to the brim; only a little more, and it would crack. She swirled the wine in her chalice, licked her lips, and took a sip.
"I've been waiting for some time, Your Grace," Grazdan said, not looking at her yet.
Dany regarded him coolly. "Have you?" She shrugged.
She saw the anger flash in his eyes, his jaw tightening. She fought the urge to smirk, sipping her wine instead. "Ancient and glorious is Yunkai. The Queen of Cities," he boasted. It was prettier than Astapor, with its yellow and gold walls and great gold harpies atop every pyramid. But Qarth was far more beautiful, in her opinion. "Our walls are strong, our nobles proud and fierce, and our common folk without fear. Ours is the blood ancient Ghis, whose empire was old before dragons stirred in Old Valyria."
"And my blood is of the dragons who brought ancient Ghis ruin," she said, seeing the anger in Grazdan's eyes grow. "Five wars our ancestors fought, and five wars yours lost. This one will be no different."
Jhogo, who sat on cushions in front of the couch, translated what was being said for Rakharo, as the older of her bloodriders had very little knowledge of the common tongue. Rakharo laughed as he oiled his Arakh. The great curved one with the silver hilt. Daenerys knew what baring steel to a guest meant and cared not.
"Kraznys said I must blood my men early," she said. Grazdan dragged his eyes away from Viserion and looked at her. "Those men standing by your glorious gates; do you think they will be enough?"
"Far too little, barely a battle worth our time," Rakharo said, though Grazdan did not understand.
"Weak men," Jhogo agreed.
Grazdan glowered at her, ignoring the two. "I pride myself on knowledge of the savage, senseless west. And yet, why should we speak so harshly to each other? You've indeed committed savageries in Astapor; we are not Astapor," he informed.
She couldn't help it. "No," Dany agreed. "You sell whores instead of soldiers. Are you going to seduce my Unsullied?"
Belwas, who stood behind the couch, bellowed. Wine spilt from his mouth, dripping down his chin and onto his ample belly. Rakharo and Jhogo's laughter was equally loud, her bloodriders jesting that they'd been a bad influence on her.
Missandei pressed her lips tightly together and cleared her throat. She poured the master another cup of wine. Ser Jorah and Barristan wet their lips with wine to cover up the chuckles. However, Grazdan was anything but amused; she could see the fury behind his copper eyes as he downed the offered wine.
"The Yunkai'i are a most generous and forgiving people," he continued, ignoring her jab. "Your quarrel is not with us, Your Grace. So why squander your strength against our walls when you need every man to take your father's throne in Westeros? Yunkai wishes you well in your endeavour, and to prove our truth, I have brought you a gift."
She watched as a bulking beast of a man carried in a heavy chest. He was eight feet tall, at the least, with a bald head and brown eyes. 'The Mountain who?' This man was a pit fighter; he had to be. But despite his size, he backed away quickly when Drogon screeched at him.
The gold looked appealing, but nothing compared to what she already had. "Fifty thousand golden marks. All we ask is that you take this gold and go."
She picked up a coin, rolling it between her knuckles. "Fifty thousand marks is roughly equal to fifty thousand honours, no? Well, it doesn't matter. Belwas here was a pit fighter, a champion over champions. Strong Belwas, they call him, and the magister Illyrio Mopatis bought him from Meereen for thrice this amount. Does that mean Belwas is worth more than your ancient and glorious yellow city? Wait, don't answer that; he is." She didn't need to look to know that Belwas was grinning like a fool. Her warrior fool. Daenerys lifted her eyes from the coin, looking straight into Grazdan's. "I find this paltry gift of yours insulting."
'There it is,' she thought, sipping her wine. The crack in the glass; she could see it in how Grazdan fidgeted on the stool, how he swallowed his breath, and how his eyes darted around the tent as if he was only seeing the dangers around him. 'Just a little more.' Daenerys looked at him again, and by how the stool screeched against the ground, she knew that he saw the change in her eyes, the violet glow, the slitting of her pupils.
As if they had known what she planned, her dragons all looked at the man, hissing, growling and roaring. Smoke puffed from their nostrils. She threw the coin up; it flipped five times, glimmering in the sunlight that peaked through the tent, and caught it again.
"Get out of my fucking tent. Go back to your city and warn your friends that I'm going to bring about their doom... unless you manage to convince the Wise Masters to lay down their arms and open the gates to me. If you don't... Well, blood, gore, screaming, death." She looked at him. He was beaten, sweating, and on the verge of tears.
"I win~."
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