[ The touch is for all of it, and none of it, all the same. Dany is tactile, particularly with those for whom she feels affection. ]
Astapor is far-famed, [ she explains, ] for training the finest soldiers in all the world. I ... I did not know why.
[ Here she pauses. She wishes to flinch, and at last, she allows it of herself. ]
In the end I had no other choice. Buy them all, and I would bring with me a slave army across the sea. Sail away, as Ser Barristan counseled, and I would leave eight thousand behind. Eight thousand, the six centuries ... and the two thousand still in training as well.
[ She had slapped Ser Jorah upon her return to her ship that afternoon. Anger was better than weeping. That night, she had debated with herself for hours, and wept in private. ]
On the morrow, [ she continues, ] I returned with my wares. All of them. The silks, the amber beads, the furs, the spices and ... and Drogon. Drogon, most of all. The Good Masters lusted for dragons.
[ Here she releases Sieglinde's hand to sip at her wine, requiring it. She can still feel the fire rising up inside her when she remembers. ]
I marched out with all, [ she tells her. ] Drogon, and the people. They were soldiers still, yet now they were free men.
[Though slavery is a concept with which Sieglinde is very familiar, (it came up in a good many histories), it's not something she's ever had to confront, or actually form an opinion on, largely dealing with it only as a passive learner of the past.
But now doesn't seem quite the time to decide either, so she continues just listening instead.
Drogon she has seen, in all his magnificence, (though according to Daenerys, not as largely magnificent as he should be), so she knows already she could not have just handed the creature over...]
Why are they famed the world over?
[She didn't feel a need to ask what happened to the Masters. It seemed.... implied.]
cw: literally every trigger warning ever in asoiaf
[ Behind her wine glass, Dany's brow darkens. It is an ungentle tale.
Once she would have shielded a child from such matters, but Sieglinde is older than Missandei, and Missandei has seen more cruelty in her short years than even Dany has. ]
Because their discipline is an unrivaled, tireless thing. They are groomed to obey, [ she tells her bluntly, ] no matter the cost to their own lives. They are gelded as youths, fed poison each night to extinguish their pain, and made to train with shield, spear, and shortsword from dawn to dusk. Unsullied keep no names among themselves, have no use for looting, and they do not harm women as armies do.
[ She pauses, reaching for Sieglinde's hand again. ]
Thousands were culled for weakness before ever they earned their spiked caps. [ She sips at her wine. ] Such was the brutality of their training. The deeds they committed before they were deemed ready for my purchase were monstrous. Enough that when first I was informed, I could not bear to think of them as men. Not even as cut men.
[Daenerys moves for her hand, and Sieglinde wraps her small fingers around the older woman's, staring for a moment at their hands, and the differences between them- and the similarities as well. The Queen might be her senior, but she is not so old as that...
And it is a foul thing she describes. The likes of which Sieglinde has only read of, in one of her books in the vast library that had made up the Green Witch's manor. A tale of Sparta, and the harsh and unforgiving training the sons of that city-state went through to mold them into perfect soldiers. And maybe their lives had been harsh to the point that even now the English used the word "spartan" for such things, but there's was... a culture that chose that path.
Not slaves.
Of course there is nothing her sympathies or feelings on the matter would do, but her gaze still lowers slightly as she debates what to say.]
What a great and terrible army that must be...
[Great, for they sounded as if they would fight to the death, fight well and fight viciously without the greed, lust, and sadism that might plague other forces... but at what cost?]
Now, [ says Dany, ] they fight for me as free men, or elsewise lead companies of other freed men, as they wish. They choose old names, new names. They keep the names given to them in their training, if that is their desire.
[ She remembers she had been curious why Grey Worm wished to keep his vermin name. His answer had moved her. ]
They have elected a captain, whom I trust with my every command. I put my life into their hands, and they have never once failed me, however frightening the task. [ She had asked if they would bring her water to bathe the sick in Astapor, and they had complied where her bloodriders and handmaids had recoiled. ]
They were made to be monsters, yet in that the Good Masters failed. [ Another sip of wine; she has sipped many times, it seems. But for this, she needs it. ] I received reports that some had visited houses of pleasure in my city. Brothels, [ she explains. ] They pay silver coin to lie with women. To be held.
[ Her eyes are dry now, as they had been then, but she had wanted to weep. Some part of her still does. ]
Tell me, how could I have given them up for lost? They are only weapons, forged in fire and steel. I would sooner extinguish the men who made them that way.
It was peculiar to hear such things straight from another's mouth, and not read it on an old and wormbit page. Soldiers who had been forced to abandon humanity, finding it again. Choosing names, and expressing opinions, and paying just for the experience of comfort. It makes her gaze soften and waver, but she likes to think it should make anyone's.]
It is a good thing, that it was you who took them under your wing.
[Soldiers like that... it's easy to imagine what someone with less sympathy and care than Daenerys had could do with them. War was an ugly thing no matter what, but to make it needlessly more so...
She carefully pulls apart a sprig of grapes, thinking.]
[ It is a question that arrives, at once, to the heart of the matter. Dany is silent, taking the chance to nibble at a plum. It is ripe and sweet, so much that the juice nearly drenches her chin, but the more the queen thinks upon her follies and her concessions, the more sour it tastes.
At last, she speaks. And when she does, there is something younger about her. What is old is the eyes. ]
I freed my people, yet I did not save them. [ A simple, profound truth. ] I thought I'd struck the chains from their ankles and cast their iron collars into the fire. In truth, all I did was cut off their feet and behead them.
[ That is the simple truth. That is what sours the plum. ]
I lingered in Meereen to rule. [ Her eyes meet Sieglinde's. ] To be a queen. My heart was sick of smashing and plundering, and I was only a young girl. I wished to feed my people and see them prosper. To ... to plant trees and watch them grow.
[ But Meereen is not her home. ]
Before I awoke in Oska, I was a starved, filthy thing. Drogon carried me away from Meereen, away into the Dothraki Sea, where once I roamed the high grasses with Khal Drogo's khalasar. I wanted to return to my city on wings, but by dusk Drogon always returns to his lair.
[ She smiles wryly. ]
I have named it Dragonstone. Do you know why, Sieglinde?
It explains why, when they'd first met on the beaches of Nalawi, what seemed like so long ago to a girl who had grown up never meeting anyone but the people of her village that she had always known, (yet never known at all), that Daenerys had not looked a queen at all, but more a beggar in rags. Clothes aside, she had believed her then, by grace of her personality and words.
Words she listened to with fascination, curiousity, and sympathy both.
She could guess, but she would rather hear it from Daenerys' lips.]
[ You know why. Dany's certain Sieglinde could guess, if she wished. Nonetheless, she smiles faintly. ]
Because Dragonstone is the ancient citadel where I was born.
[ Her home. If there are truly gods in her world, there can be no stronger omen than that. ]
My home across the sea. Where Aegon once lived, and the princes and princesses of old after him.
[ Her plum is lowered, her hands settled into her lap. ]
On the day I wed Hizdahr, my enemies had ringed my city in steel. I chained myself in gold to a harpy, yet with that gesture I returned many to their bonds. I am no Meereenese queen, no matter my veil, no matter my tokar.
[ It is as if there is some fire within her, for all that her eyes are distant. ]
I am the blood of the dragon, and one day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father's throne.
[It is easy to get caught up in the fervor, the thrill of adventure, weddings, revenge, and conquest. Sieglinde, who had always read and dreamed of the Outside World she could only wish to see until ALASTAIR, might be particularly susceptible to such things. She scarce takes her eyes from Daenerys as she speaks, the grapes in her hand forgotten.
Some of the words she uses a girl not of the same world cannot understand, but Sieglinde is clever and educated, she infers and the picture assembles itself despite- a quest that held the lives of countless thousands in its grip.
The queen's last words ring and die in the air, and it takes a moment for the small Witch to find her own in response, searching the older woman's face and seeing clearly her determination, the fire worthy of a dragon. (No wonder that bold man had been so fascinated.)]
I may know little of your world, but there is something touched about you. Any Witch could see that- someone strong enough to bring their desires to life.
[Her voice sounds slightly removed, above, the same voice she had used with her villagers, when she prophesied and read the stars. From when she'd believed she could.]
I cannot fathom the lives that may be lost upon the way... but that is the way of war and the world, no matter how we mortals dislike it. I, who have doomed perhaps thousands... even still I cannot imagine the weight you must bear.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Astapor is far-famed, [ she explains, ] for training the finest soldiers in all the world. I ... I did not know why.
[ Here she pauses. She wishes to flinch, and at last, she allows it of herself. ]
In the end I had no other choice. Buy them all, and I would bring with me a slave army across the sea. Sail away, as Ser Barristan counseled, and I would leave eight thousand behind. Eight thousand, the six centuries ... and the two thousand still in training as well.
[ She had slapped Ser Jorah upon her return to her ship that afternoon. Anger was better than weeping. That night, she had debated with herself for hours, and wept in private. ]
On the morrow, [ she continues, ] I returned with my wares. All of them. The silks, the amber beads, the furs, the spices and ... and Drogon. Drogon, most of all. The Good Masters lusted for dragons.
[ Here she releases Sieglinde's hand to sip at her wine, requiring it. She can still feel the fire rising up inside her when she remembers. ]
I marched out with all, [ she tells her. ] Drogon, and the people. They were soldiers still, yet now they were free men.
[ Whilst the plaza yet burned. ]
no subject
But now doesn't seem quite the time to decide either, so she continues just listening instead.
Drogon she has seen, in all his magnificence, (though according to Daenerys, not as largely magnificent as he should be), so she knows already she could not have just handed the creature over...]
Why are they famed the world over?
[She didn't feel a need to ask what happened to the Masters. It seemed.... implied.]
cw: literally every trigger warning ever in asoiaf
Once she would have shielded a child from such matters, but Sieglinde is older than Missandei, and Missandei has seen more cruelty in her short years than even Dany has. ]
Because their discipline is an unrivaled, tireless thing. They are groomed to obey, [ she tells her bluntly, ] no matter the cost to their own lives. They are gelded as youths, fed poison each night to extinguish their pain, and made to train with shield, spear, and shortsword from dawn to dusk. Unsullied keep no names among themselves, have no use for looting, and they do not harm women as armies do.
[ She pauses, reaching for Sieglinde's hand again. ]
Thousands were culled for weakness before ever they earned their spiked caps. [ She sips at her wine. ] Such was the brutality of their training. The deeds they committed before they were deemed ready for my purchase were monstrous. Enough that when first I was informed, I could not bear to think of them as men. Not even as cut men.
no subject
And it is a foul thing she describes. The likes of which Sieglinde has only read of, in one of her books in the vast library that had made up the Green Witch's manor. A tale of Sparta, and the harsh and unforgiving training the sons of that city-state went through to mold them into perfect soldiers. And maybe their lives had been harsh to the point that even now the English used the word "spartan" for such things, but there's was... a culture that chose that path.
Not slaves.
Of course there is nothing her sympathies or feelings on the matter would do, but her gaze still lowers slightly as she debates what to say.]
What a great and terrible army that must be...
[Great, for they sounded as if they would fight to the death, fight well and fight viciously without the greed, lust, and sadism that might plague other forces... but at what cost?]
And now?
[She said "when first".]
no subject
[ She remembers she had been curious why Grey Worm wished to keep his vermin name. His answer had moved her. ]
They have elected a captain, whom I trust with my every command. I put my life into their hands, and they have never once failed me, however frightening the task. [ She had asked if they would bring her water to bathe the sick in Astapor, and they had complied where her bloodriders and handmaids had recoiled. ]
They were made to be monsters, yet in that the Good Masters failed. [ Another sip of wine; she has sipped many times, it seems. But for this, she needs it. ] I received reports that some had visited houses of pleasure in my city. Brothels, [ she explains. ] They pay silver coin to lie with women. To be held.
[ Her eyes are dry now, as they had been then, but she had wanted to weep. Some part of her still does. ]
Tell me, how could I have given them up for lost? They are only weapons, forged in fire and steel. I would sooner extinguish the men who made them that way.
Lord I thought I tagged this sorry
It was peculiar to hear such things straight from another's mouth, and not read it on an old and wormbit page. Soldiers who had been forced to abandon humanity, finding it again. Choosing names, and expressing opinions, and paying just for the experience of comfort. It makes her gaze soften and waver, but she likes to think it should make anyone's.]
It is a good thing, that it was you who took them under your wing.
[Soldiers like that... it's easy to imagine what someone with less sympathy and care than Daenerys had could do with them. War was an ugly thing no matter what, but to make it needlessly more so...
She carefully pulls apart a sprig of grapes, thinking.]
And now... where will the road lead from Ghis?
[When... if. She returned home.]
no subject
At last, she speaks. And when she does, there is something younger about her. What is old is the eyes. ]
I freed my people, yet I did not save them. [ A simple, profound truth. ] I thought I'd struck the chains from their ankles and cast their iron collars into the fire. In truth, all I did was cut off their feet and behead them.
[ That is the simple truth. That is what sours the plum. ]
I lingered in Meereen to rule. [ Her eyes meet Sieglinde's. ] To be a queen. My heart was sick of smashing and plundering, and I was only a young girl. I wished to feed my people and see them prosper. To ... to plant trees and watch them grow.
[ But Meereen is not her home. ]
Before I awoke in Oska, I was a starved, filthy thing. Drogon carried me away from Meereen, away into the Dothraki Sea, where once I roamed the high grasses with Khal Drogo's khalasar. I wanted to return to my city on wings, but by dusk Drogon always returns to his lair.
[ She smiles wryly. ]
I have named it Dragonstone. Do you know why, Sieglinde?
no subject
It explains why, when they'd first met on the beaches of Nalawi, what seemed like so long ago to a girl who had grown up never meeting anyone but the people of her village that she had always known, (yet never known at all), that Daenerys had not looked a queen at all, but more a beggar in rags. Clothes aside, she had believed her then, by grace of her personality and words.
Words she listened to with fascination, curiousity, and sympathy both.
She could guess, but she would rather hear it from Daenerys' lips.]
Why?
no subject
Because Dragonstone is the ancient citadel where I was born.
[ Her home. If there are truly gods in her world, there can be no stronger omen than that. ]
My home across the sea. Where Aegon once lived, and the princes and princesses of old after him.
[ Her plum is lowered, her hands settled into her lap. ]
On the day I wed Hizdahr, my enemies had ringed my city in steel. I chained myself in gold to a harpy, yet with that gesture I returned many to their bonds. I am no Meereenese queen, no matter my veil, no matter my tokar.
[ It is as if there is some fire within her, for all that her eyes are distant. ]
I am the blood of the dragon, and one day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father's throne.
no subject
Some of the words she uses a girl not of the same world cannot understand, but Sieglinde is clever and educated, she infers and the picture assembles itself despite- a quest that held the lives of countless thousands in its grip.
The queen's last words ring and die in the air, and it takes a moment for the small Witch to find her own in response, searching the older woman's face and seeing clearly her determination, the fire worthy of a dragon. (No wonder that bold man had been so fascinated.)]
I may know little of your world, but there is something touched about you. Any Witch could see that- someone strong enough to bring their desires to life.
[Her voice sounds slightly removed, above, the same voice she had used with her villagers, when she prophesied and read the stars. From when she'd believed she could.]
I cannot fathom the lives that may be lost upon the way... but that is the way of war and the world, no matter how we mortals dislike it. I, who have doomed perhaps thousands... even still I cannot imagine the weight you must bear.
[How heavy it must be.]
You must build a kingdom worthy of that loss.