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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years ago

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Hi :) I... really wanna read a fanfic or two but I can't find one I vibe with xD So... do you know one that's not too long (around 100k words maybe), has hurt and comfort, smut (am I allowed to ask about that?? Ahhhh) and a happy ending? Top!lock would be a bonus but it's not necessary. And if it's a nice AU (like... any kind but no crossovers pls), it would be perfect! :D By the way, I found your blog only a few hours ago and I already feel really comfy and Idk, kinda at home here ^-^

Hi Nonny!!!

Welcome to my corner of the Tumblrsphere!!! I’m so happy you’ve found me, LOL, because I love all my followers and friends! <3

First of all, I think it’s super cute that “not too long” to you is “around 100K” LOL LOL LOL!!! <3 That said, I’d argue all my fic recs are fabulous, LOL. But again, I’m stupidly proud of the wonderful lists I’ve accumulated, because it satisfies my organization kink LOL. And yes, you’re ALWAYS allowed to ask for smut here LOL.

ANYWAY, so I’m gonna use this ask as an excuse to post up a long-overdue part two to my 50 to 100K fic list! But first, here’s some past lists for the genres you’re looking for:

FIC MASTER PAGES: PG1 || PG 2 || PG 3

Toplock (Mar 2020)

Omegaverse

Please Check PG 3 for all my AU fic lists. There’s a lot :)

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 1: Under 5K Words

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 2: 5K to 10K Words

Fandom Favourites / Popular Fics

I hope those will get you started! So now, here’s the main event!! Hope you enjoy them!

50 - 100 K WORDS Pt. 2 (Novel Length)

See also:

Fics Under 2000 w.

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 2

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 3

E-Rated Johnlock for Newcomers Pt 1 (Short Fics under 20K)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Long S3/Post-S3 Fics (20K+ w.) [Apr 2020]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug 2019)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Never Change a Running System by Lorelei_Lee (E, 54,246 w. || Pre-TRF, Romance, Humour, Drama, Sex Toys, Anal, Rimming, Masturbation, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Public Sex, First Kiss / Time, Virgin Sherlock / Loss of Virginity, Accidental Voyeurism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Experiments, Naive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Straight With an Exception John, Hand Jobs) – Sherlock discovers his sexuality – with far-reaching consequences for John.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of the SpaceBois go to Space series

The Thing Is by TSylvestris (E, 56,743 w. || Case Fic, Dev. Rel., Anal/Oral, Blow Jobs, Meddling Mycroft, Drama, Romance, Humour, Casual Encounters, Pining Idiots, Possessive Sherlock, Orgasm Delay, Rough / Alley Sex, Public Sex, John Whump, Drugged John, Emotional Love Making, Awkward Relationship, Marriage of Convenience, Switchlock) – The problem with living with Sherlock, John thought, was that you never, never, ever knew the significance of anything. Like your flatmate's nose buried in your hair. Whilst you're in bed. Part 1 of Nitroglycerine

One Little Change by jadztone (E, 58,312 w. || ASiB Divergence, Fake Relationship, Bed Sharing, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss / Time, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bi John / Gay Demisexual Sherlock, Switchlock, Alternating POV, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Case Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Emotional Love Making, Butt Plugs, Cuddles) – Our story begins right after John and Sherlock's first meeting with Irene Adler in September. It splits off into an AU that imagines them taking a case where they act as bait to hook a killer targeting closeted gays in secret relationships. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, many things happen that have our boys wondering if maybe they have a chance with each other. Then Irene fakes her death on Christmas Eve, and things get a lot more complicated - especially since they still have a killer to catch.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w. || Notting Hilll AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

The Burning by SrebrnaFH (M, 60,658 w. || Reverse Reichenbach, Suicide, Depression, Hurt Sherlock / John, Separation, BAMF John, Good Big Brother Mycroft, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fake Character Death, Rescue Mission, Reconciliation / Reunion, Hospitalization, Marriage Proposal, Illnesses, Physical Therapy, Happily Ever After) – Something went very, very wrong. John had seemed, if not happy, then reasonably content with his life. Sherlock had never predicted something like THIS might have happened. Not in his worst nightmares. He was the lousiest friend ever, apparently. At least Mycroft found him something to occupy his mind with, so that he didn't have to go back to 221B and stare at the walls and the chair, where John Watson would never sit again.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) – In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief...

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU || Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Monument of Memory by J_Baillier (M, 79,663 w., 14 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It Fic / S4 is Canon, Angst, Family Drama, Guilt, Case Fic, John Loves Sherlock, Complicated Feelings, Mentalism / Hypnosis, Murder, Grieving John, Sherlock is a Bit Not Good, Team Work, Trust Issues, BAMF John, Psychological Trauma, Protective John, Autistic-Spectrum Sherlock, Parentlock, John POV) – A genius traumatised by a past he's only beginning to recall. The psychopath sister that time forgot. A missing woman and a mentalist who may or may not be a murderer. And, in the middle of it all, stands John Watson.

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater / Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU || BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

31_Days_of_Porn_Challenge_2017 Series by distantstarlight (E, 96,540 w. across 31 stories || Prompt Ficlets, Assorted Kinks, PWP) – A collection in response to the 31 Days of Porn Challenge issued by AtlinMerrik! Thanks for doing that because this has been buttload of fun (that joke never gets old). All stories will be brief stand-alone one-shots.

The Baker Street Nativity by SwissMiss (E, 99,662 w., 23 Ch. || Nativity! AU || Teacher Sherlock / TA John, Pining, Sherlock POV, UST, Angst, Christmas, Music/Song Fic, Anal / BJ’s, First Kiss / Time) – Fusion between Sherlock (BBC) and Nativity! (2009 movie starring Martin Freeman). Sherlock is a primary school teacher and John is assigned to be his classroom assistant. Together, they are charged with putting on the school's Nativity play. What could possibly go wrong? Part 1 of The Baker Street Nativity Verse

Given In Evidence by verityburns (M, 97,884 w., 19 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Angst, Drama, Case Fic, Romance, BAMF!John, Submissive Sherlock, First Kiss, Humour) – Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #long fics #50 to 100k #Anonymous #fic rec wednesday #e-rated fics

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i-am-just-a-kiddo · 4 years ago

Note

ok so I tried to come up with three characters like you did for me but this was very difficult. so feel free to ignore some if you don't like it or feel like talking about someone else :'D but the beauty ghost/liu qianqiao (word of honor), yu tangchun (killer and healer, bc i know you like our opera boy) and seo moonjo (strangers from hell, bc i am always curious about you and this dentist lol)

Aaaah thanks for these! 💗 It’s been a joy to answer them, so I hope you can get through my ramblings about them.

Referring to Give Me A Character

and I’ll break their ass down:

How I feel about this character

All the people I ship romantically with this character

My non-romantic OTP for this character

My unpopular opinion about this character

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

My answers under the cut:

Liu Qian Qiao/ Beauty Ghost (Word of Honor)

How I feel about her: I love her and she deserves better. I’ve not finished the drama yet and I know surprisingly little spoilers about her. I just love to see her acting on her own accord, standing up for the person she loves. Being protective and so caring of Luo Fu Meng, it breaks my heart. From what I’ve seen, she’s gotten on my radar only recently - after they saved Luo Fu Meng from the prison, I got really excited to see more of her and them in general.

I think she deserves better than that pathetic man whose name I don’t bother to remember. I’m scared of what the show will do to her but I’m so excited to see more, especially now that Scorpion got them in his clutches? She’s on par with him and I’m curious which direction this will go. However, as with many C-dramas unfortunately, she does not really feel tangible to me? There is always something missing, just a small piece that will make her feel more true to me. Maybe the drama will deliver on that? I’m not sure what to expect.

All the people I ship romantically with her: Luo Fu Meng!!! Lesbian ghosts rights!!! Their recent scenes have been breaking me and I just want to see more of them. I want to know more about their past together, about their dynamic. Luo Fu Meng is her master but right now, Liu Qian Qiao is the one guiding and caring for her. It shows how equal they actually are, even if not in their title. Liu Qian Qiao’s devotion to her feels so burning and determined - whatever she has going on with that man just pales in contrast. She was ready to risk it all for her and she would never abandon her. She’s willing to do anything and I’m just praying for their lives - please don’t fuck it up, @ show writers.

In short, I just need more of them. Please.

My non-romantic OTP for her: I loved her interaction with A-Xiang a lot - she truly seems like an older sibling to her and it’s precious to see. I can see them being easily annoyed with each other but also fiercely protective of the other. I can see A-xiang being an unstoppable whirlwind and Qian Qiao trying to ground her, while being incredibly fond. I can also see A-xiang pulling her older sister out of her own head, grounding her and validating her? Tell her that she is more than she thinks of herself, and that she deserves a lot more than she allows for herself. I need more of their interaction because I’m weak for found family tropes and I need more of the ladies doing their own thing outside of Wen Kexing’s or someone else’s periphery.

Also I want more interaction with her and the Evil Bodhisattva???? The potential that friendship has? Please gimme.

My unpopular opinion: I don’t know any opinions? I’ve not yet dived deeply into the WOH fandom because I’m not done with the drama yet. I’ve generally seen little content about her and the other ghost ladies, which is a pity. Once I get there, I’m excited to dive into all the fandom has to offer.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I’m on episode 24, so I can’t really judge what the show is gonna do to her, but so far I wish for more depth. Less of that horrible man being affiliated with her. Less of her being subjected to violence. More agency. More of her and Fu Meng interacting, caring for each other, being in each other’s space. I hope her to survive and not be killed, so I’m crossing fingers.

Yu Tangchun (Killer and Healer)

How I feel about this character: OH BOY. I have freshly baked feelings about him, get ready. Warning for spoilers:

First of all, I always felt the drama did not dive into him as deeply as I had wished. Something was always missing there, but I can’t really name what. Maybe more depth, other than just being sick and out for revenge? He had more potential and I will get to it later. But from all I’ve gotten from him, I love how strong he is, and how much bravery there is in such a small body. He has his own mind and own agenda and doesn’t allow people pushing him around - I also love how deceiving he can be, even to his friends (namely Chen Yuzhi when he asked for that drug). He is a clever fox and I love that for him. Which also made him incredibly unpredictable to me in the beginning - I just couldn’t quite place him?

In the end, am just incredibly fond and he deserved so so much better than the show ever gave him.

All the people I ship romantically with him: Zhan Junbai, with all its flaws. From the first moment on, their tension just made me go ???????? the whole time. It was amazing and unsettling to watch, see its development and knowing this could not end well. A very delicious dynamic that always treaded the line of will they or won’t they (whether that refers to killing each other or otherwise). At some point I felt a little more invested into their plotline simply because it was so interesting and unpredictable. The mutual attraction is undeniable, which made what happened later even more heartbreaking and fucked up.

It could have never worked, even if Zhan Zhunbai had been less of a dick. They deserved a different ending - at least Yu Tangchun should have been the one to kill him, or at least they should have had a proper showdown together. After all - they were more than friends at this point.

My non-romantic OTP: I loved his friendship with Chen Yuzhi, but I must say I would have loved to see him more with Chu Ran! If we imagine a different ending, they could have bonded together so much over what Zhan Junbai did to the both of them. They are both so gentle and headstrong, I wish we had gotten more of them together. It could be relaxing and freeing for the both of them.

Also I’ve always wondered how exactly Yu Tangchun’s friendship with Jiang Yuelou worked? I think this got way too little spotlight.

My unpopular opinion about him: I have no idea what is popular and what isn’t? Maybe that I sort of enjoyed the idea of Yu Tangchun joining Zhan Junbai, even though I knew it wouldn’t happen. Let me dream, that could have been a different level of conflict.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Oh boy. Oh boy. SO MUCH. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t finished the show:

First of all, his ending?? It felt way too rushed and while not out of character, he deserved so much more than his death being an afterthought to the plot and a few sad gay flashbacks. The entire ending felt rushed and oh boy, could I rant about it here, but I will try and focus on Yu Tangchun. So yes, give him the respect he deserves.

Another thing which I have mentioned above is that I wished they had given him more depth? Just a little bit more other than the trauma and agony he went through. I also wish I had seen more of his opera and his story with it - how he got there, how he thinks about it. We only ever got glimpses and I get that a show can only focus on so much, but still.

I also wish his ending with Zhan Junbai had been different - in a sense that I wanted him to break Zhan Junbai, lure some genuine emotions on his face other than anger. I wish they had gotten more….closure? I don’t even know. It didn’t feel satisfactory at all. Zhan Junbai went through so much trouble to keep him and then suddenly he let’s him go and then he dies? It just went too quickly. If at least Yu Tangchun had been there to kill him in the end, or at least get some sort of closure. I’m rambling now because I don’t know what I wanted for them but it was certainly more than what the show gave me. I am so frustrated about the ending of the show, help me.

Seo Moonjo (Strangers from Hell)

How I feel about this character: Conflicted. That is the short answer to that, but of course I’m not here to give a short answer. Do I have to clarify that I do not condone the actions of a cannibalistic serial killer in real life? I hope not. Okay, let’s get to it then.

Seo Moonjo (or Mr. Dentist, as I lovingly call him) to me is incredibly intimidating. Part of it is that Lee Dong Wook does an incredible job at depicting him as charming and terribly unsettling at the same time. From the first second he shows up on screen, you feel this presence - and you feel intrigue and fear. Which is what Seo Moonjo wants, it’s what he preys on.

So when I think about how I feel about him, I think he is one of the best villains I’ve encountered recently, simply because he makes me feel the same way he makes Jongwoo feel. I’m very fascinated? I feel Seo Moonjo is a very lonely person, lost in his own ideals and morals. He has absolutely no sense of social propriety and does not intend to learn them. He’s so caught up in his own art and his desire for a certain life, it’s almost pitiful how much he desires it. But of course, once I feel a sliver of pity, he reminds me that he is - indeed - hell personified. I am still lowkey mad that he charmed me (why is being a villain so sexy smh).

Summing up, I love and hate him. What a creepy bastard.

All the people I ship romantically with him: Yoon Jongwoo, despite all the cruelty of it. I think comparing this show to NBC’s Hannibal is very valid, even though these two never got a proper development of their relationship like Will and Hannibal did. I absolutely think that Seo Moonjo is in love with Jongwoo and wants him to be his, wants to wrap him up in his life and make him the ‘perfect art-piece’ he had always wanted in his collection. No matter how sick it is, this obsession is probably the closest Seo Moonjo can get to feeling love - he does not know how else to love.

So what do I want for them? I want Jongwoo to get his revenge, to make Seo Moonjo suffer as much as he did. I want Jongwoo to see eye to eye with him so they can walk with equal footing. I want Seo Moonjo to realise that Jongwoo has as much power over him as he thinks he has over the other. After this, they can be murder husbands for all I care, in true Hannibal-esque fashion. The emancipation of Jongwoo needs to happen first, and Seo Moonjo needs to realise that he is not the invincible one in this relationship. After that, they can have a good time together, no matter how fucked up that time may look like.

Also, I am convinced that he ‘dated’ Yoo Gihyeok in a twisted way, before he went and fucked up his plans; and before Jongwoo came to cath his eye.

My non-romantic OTP: As mentioned above - Seo Moonjo is a lone wolf. Yes he had his pack and someone that guided him on this path, but none of them ever come close to him to see his heart. The show itself doesn’t give him much space to see a potential friendship except the one he has with Jongwoo. Jongwoo would be the answer for this as well. (also to be fair, I don’t wish anyone to be friends with him damn)

However, if I could explore more dynamics he has with other people, I would love to see it with Officer So. I think she is an incredibly interesting and strong character and the few scenes they had together were fascinating - she came as his patient and ended up being his enemy. In another installment of this show, I would’ve loved to see more interaction like that and see the development of them being pleasant acquaintances (and maybe Seo Moonjo realising that she too is worth his attention) to enemies. I want Seo Moonjo to find respect for her.

My unpopular opinion: I’m not into depicting him as fancy rich, as many do in fics. Yes he’s a dentist and surely has a ton of money, but I like the idea that despite this wealth, he would always be a shabby sort of person. Not decked out with a luxurious rooftop apartment and wearing dress-shirts every day and expensive watches; but rather using his wealth to make himself safe from detection, finding remote areas, buying utensils and appliances for his ‘art’. So no, I reject the vision of him lounging on the highest building in Seoul with a minimalist empty apartment. I see him in a ratty rundown but expensive old mansion/house that has many corners for his artistic endeavours. I’ve already picked the perfect house for him in Busan, on the top of a hill overseeing the city and the harbour.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I’ve mentioned it above, but I wish Seo Moonjo had gotten to feel more pain. We got Jongwoo’s liberation and Moonjo being proud of his ‘artwork’ while Jongwoo kills him, but that was not the revenge Jongwoo needed. In the end, Moonjo still lingers with him, as a constant presence, and he never got a taste of his own medicine. While watching this show, all I wanted was Jongwoo to break Moonjo’s heart. This would not make up the suffering Moonjo put him through but at least they would be equal. So I have my own revenge fantasy with this character that is more than ‘merely’ killing him. Being killed by Jongwoo just felt like an honour to Seo Moonjo and I’m not satisfied with that.

Phew okay I’m done! Thank you for giving me something to ramble about, it was a joy!!

#personal #answers #tag game #am gonna tag it like this #word of honor #killer and healer #strangers from hell

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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Dany's actions as Queen of Meereen and the advice she received

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven). Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

*Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is no guarantee that the effort was perfectly executed, but I did my best.

Also, people could interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She's still massively inexperienced when it comes to leading, and has a tendency to slavishly follow the advice of those around her. (x)

She makes a show of paying attention to all sides but never takes their concerns about culture or the economy seriously. And, surprise, this leads to violence. You could argue that it’s fine since the majority of the city clearly wants to punish the old slave masters, but here’s where she really screws up: she doesn’t even listen to the majority of the people. It’s not like she spares the former slave who kills the Son of Harpy or finds better housing for the poor. But we can’t pretend that she’s doing it all for show; her problem is that she cares more about individual petitioners than about open debate. (Wisecrack)

Dany used to take control. [...] But then she got comfortable. With an army, a legion of followers who think she's "Mhysa," and a council that are all fighting over being her favorite, she's relaxed into letting other people "help" her rule (you're the Queen! YOU DO THE RULING!) and basically doing not a whole lot other than lock two out of her three dragons up in a dungeon, while the other is who-knows-where breathing fire on everything. (x)

[W]e haven’t really gotten a chance to get to know the people she’s (often literally) burned. They’ve been depicted as two-dimensional villains, two-faced schemers, and backwards-thinking haters committed to enslaving people. They don’t deserve pity; They deserve to be conquered! The problem here is that they actually are all people and while their values might be abhorrent to Daenerys, you can’t course correct an entire culture with a couple of decrees and a bit of gusto. Hence why Daenerys kind of deserves the wrath of the Sons of the Harpy. Conquering a city is easy — making people love you after you’ve conquered them is hard. (x)

It’s true that Daenerys embraces the responsibilities of her role, but unless setting everything on fire is an option, she seldom knows what to do when faced with difficult challenges. (x)

Does Dany "[make] a show of paying attention to all sides but never takes their concerns about culture or the economy seriously"? Did Dany "[relax] into letting other people "help" her rule" and "[did not do] a whole lot"? Does Dany "kind of [deserve] the wrath of the Sons of the Harpy" (disgusting)? Is it simply that "Dany seldom knows what to do" if "setting everything on fire" doesn't work? Does Dany "slavishly follow the advice of those around her"?

I would argue these claims certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but the show can be all over the place and ... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

NOTE: For this list, I organized the chapters chronogically because I think the progression of events works better that way, which is different from other lists (that were focused on Dany's characterization), in which I ordered the chapters back to front because I felt it highlighted Dany's character development.

Also, I separated passages about Dany's actions from passages where Dany receives advice to prove that Dany makes decisions critically, i.e., taking into consideration both her counsellors' perspectives and her own without "slavishly" following neither. However, since they aren't always mutually exclusive, I had to repeat many of them and cut them short according to what I wanted to show. Still hope I got my point across with this collection.

Dany’s actions in Slaver’s Bay

ASOS Daenerys VI

“Was the night as quiet as it seemed?” Dany asked.

“It seems it was, Your Grace,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

She was pleased. Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but Meereen was calm again. But for how long?

“Your Worship!” he cried. “My name is Ghael. I bring greetings to the Mother of Dragons from King Cleon of Astapor, Cleon the Great.”

Dany stiffened. “I left a council to rule Astapor. A healer, a scholar, and a priest.”

“Your Worship, those sly rogues betrayed your trust. It was revealed that they were scheming to restore the Good Masters to power and the people to chains. Great Cleon exposed their plots and hacked their heads off with a cleaver, and the grateful folk of Astapor have crowned him for his valor.”

[...]I have given Astapor a butcher king. Dany felt ill, but she knew she must not let the envoy see it. “I will pray that King Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?”

[...] “As you wish. Great Cleon bids me declare his devotion to the Mother of Dragons. Your enemies are his enemies, he says, and chief among them are the Wise Masters of Yunkai. He proposes a pact between Astapor and Meereen, against the Yunkai’i.”

“I swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they released their slaves,” said Dany.

“These Yunkish dogs cannot be trusted, Your Worship. Even now they plot against you. New levies have been raised and can be seen drilling outside the city walls, warships are being built, envoys have been sent to New Ghis and Volantis in the west, to make alliances and hire sellswords. They have even dispatched riders to Vaes Dothrak to bring a khalasar down upon you. Great Cleon bid me tell you not to be afraid. Astapor remembers. Astapor will not forsake you. To prove his faith, Great Cleon offers to seal your alliance with a marriage.”

“A marriage? To me?”

Ghael smiled. His teeth were brown and rotten. “Great Cleon will give you many strong sons.”

Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to her rescue. “Did his first wife give him sons?”

The envoy looked at her unhappily. “Great Cleon has three daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child. But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will consent to wed him.”

“How noble of him,” said Dany. “I will consider all you’ve said, my lord.” She gave orders that Ghael be given chambers for the night, somewhere lower in the pyramid.

“Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.”

“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.

“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides.”

“It shall be done as you command, glorious queen,” said Daario. “My Stormcrows will collect your tenth.” if the Stormcrows saw to the collections at least half the gold would somehow go astray, Dany knew. But the Second Sons were just as bad, and the Unsullied were as unlettered as they were incorruptible. “Records must be kept,” she said. “Seek among the freedmen for men who can read, write, and do sums.”

ADWD Daenerys I

“Grey Worm, why was this man alone? Had he no partner?” By her command, when the Unsullied walked the streets of Meereen by night they always walked in pairs.

“Stalwart Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle and bury him with cap and shield and spears.”

[...] “Send men to the Temple of the Graces and ask if any man has come to the Blue Graces with a sword wound. And spread the word that we will pay good gold for the short sword of Stalwart Shield. Inquire of the butchers and the herdsmen, and learn who has been gelding goats of late.” Perhaps some goatherd would confess. “Henceforth, no man of mine walks alone after dark.”

Selmy was training knights for her, teaching the sons of slaves to fight with lance and longsword in the Westerosi fashion … but what good would lances do against cowards who killed from the shadows?

Dany had dispatched her tiny khalasar to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three bloodriders, whilst Brown Ben Plumm took his Second Sons south to guard against Yunkish incursions.

The most crucial task of all she had entrusted to Daario Naharis, glib-tongued Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, smiling his wicked smile through purple whiskers. Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need … but the Lamb Men had no reason to love Meereen. “When the Stormcrows return from Lhazar, perhaps I can use them in the streets,” she told Ser Barristan, “but until then I have only the Unsullied.”

“How much gold have we offered for information concerning the Sons of the Harpy?” Dany asked.

“One hundred honors, if it please Your Radiance.”

“One thousand honors would please us more. Make it so.”

[...] “Skahaz,” she told the Shavepate, “I thank you for your counsel. Reznak, see what one thousand honors may accomplish.”

“King Cleon would be wise to tend his own gardens and let the Yunkai’i tend theirs.” [...]

“I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” she told Lord Ghael, “but we have heard that Astapor is starving. Let King Cleon feed his people before he leads them out to battle.” She made a gesture of dismissal. Ghael withdrew.

When Dany had closed the city’s fighting pits, the value of pit shares had plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with both hands, and now owned most of the fighting pits in Meereen.

[...] “...How many times have I refused you?”

“Five times, Your Magnificence.”

“Six now. I will not have the fighting pits reopened.”

What he desired turned out to be gold. Dany had refused to compensate any of the Great Masters for the value of their slaves, but the Meereenese kept devising other ways to squeeze coin from her. The noble Grazdan had once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver, it seemed; the fruits of her loom were greatly valued, not only in Meereen, but in New Ghis and Astapor and Qarth. When this woman had grown old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and commanded the crone to instruct them in the secrets of her craft. The old woman was dead now. The young ones, freed, had opened a shop by the harbor wall to sell their weavings. Grazdan zo Galare asked that he be granted a portion of their earnings. “They owe their skill to me,” he insisted. “I plucked them from the auction bloc and gave them to the loom.”

Dany listened quietly, her face still. When he was done, she said, “What was the name of the old weaver?”

“The slave?” Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. “She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace.”

“Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman.”

A rich woman came, whose husband and sons had died defending the city walls. During the sack she had fled to her brother in fear. When she returned, she found her house had been turned into a brothel. The whores had bedecked themselves in her jewels and clothes. She wanted her house back, and her jewels. “They can keep the clothes,” she allowed. Dany granted her the jewels but ruled the house was lost when she abandoned it.

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble’s bedwarmer before the city fell. The noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble’s bastard as his own. Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding. “When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape.” Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs.

A boy came, younger than Dany, slight and scarred, dressed up in a frayed grey tokar trailing silver fringe. His voice broke when he told of how two of his father's household slaves had risen up the night the gate broke. One had slain his father, the other his elder brother. Both had raped his mother before killing her as well. The boy had escaped with no more than the scar upon his face, but one of the murderers was still living in his father's house, and the other had joined the queen's soldiers as one of the Mother's Men. He wanted them both hanged.

I am queen over a city built on dust and death. Dany had no choice but to deny him. She had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. Nor would she punish slaves for rising up against their masters.

“Pay them for the value of their animals,” she told Reznak, “but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis.”

ADWD Daenerys II

“Give them to the Shavepate. Skahaz, keep each apart from the others and put them to the question.”

“It will be done, Your Worship. Would you have me question them sweetly, or sharply?”

“Sweetly, to begin. Hear what tales they tell and what names they give you. It may be they had no part in this.” She hesitated. “Nine, the noble Reznak said. Who else?”

“Three freedmen, murdered in their homes,” the Shavepate said. “A moneylender, a cobbler, and the harpist Rylona Rhee. They cut her fingers off before they killed her.” The queen flinched. Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany’s councils. “We have no captives but this wineseller?”

“None, this one grieves to confess. We beg your pardon.”

Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon’s mercy. “Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”

“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him.”

“Do as you think best, but bring me names.” Her fury was a fire in her belly.

“I will have no more Unsullied slaughtered. Grey Worm, pull your men back to their barracks. Henceforth let them guard my walls and gates and person. From this day, it shall be for Meereenese to keep the peace in Meereen. Skahaz, make me a new watch, made up in equal parts of shavepates and freedmen.”

“As you command. How many men?”

“As many as you require.”

Reznak mo Reznak gasped. “Magnificence, where is the coin to come from to pay wages for so many men?”

“From the pyramids. Call it a blood tax. I will have a hundred pieces of gold from every pyramid for each freedman that the Harpy’s Sons have slain.”

“but Your Radiance should know that the Great Masters of Zhak and Merreq are making preparations to quit their pyramids and leave the city.”

[...] “Let them go, but see that they take no more than the clothes upon their backs. Make certain that all their gold remains here with us. Their stores of food as well.”

“Magnificence,” murmured Reznak mo Reznak, “we cannot know that these great nobles mean to join your enemies. More like they are simply making for their estates in the hills.”

“They will not mind us keeping their gold safe, then. There is nothing to buy in the hills.”

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Yes, Daenerys thought, and so am I. “We must keep them safe as well. I will have two children from each of them. From the other pyramids as well. A boy and a girl.”

“Hostages,” said Skahaz, happily.

“Pages and cupbearers. If the Great Masters make objection, explain to them that in Westeros it is a great honor for a child to be chosen to serve at court.”

“The freedmen work cheaply because they are hungry,” Dany pointed out. “If I forbid them to carve stone or lay bricks, the chandlers, the weavers, and the goldsmiths will soon be at my gates asking that they be excluded from those trades as well.” She considered a moment. “Let it be written that henceforth only guild members shall be permitted to name themselves journeymen or masters … provided the guilds open their rolls to any freedman who can demonstrate the requisite skills.”

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon’s work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that … but if that was so, why had Hazzea’s father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear.

[...] Dany chose to pay the blood price. No one could tell her the worth of a daughter, so she set it at one hundred times the worth of a lamb. “I would give Hazzea back to you if I could,” she told the father, “but some things are beyond the power of even a queen. Her bones shall be laid to rest in the Temple of the Graces, and a hundred candles shall burn day and night in her memory. Come back to me each year upon her nameday, and your other children shall not want … but this tale must never pass your lips again.”

ADWD Daenerys III

The Stormcrows were returning from Lhazar. Her captain was riding back to her, bringing her the friendship of the Lamb Men. Food and trade, she reminded herself. He did not fail me, nor will he. Daario will help me save my city.

Skahaz mo Kandaq had given her the new watch she had asked for, made up in equal numbers of freedmen and shavepate Meereenese. They walked the streets both day and night, in dark hoods and brazen masks. The Sons of the Harpy had promised grisly death to any traitor who dared serve the dragon queen, and to their kith and kin as well, so the Shavepate's men went about as jackals, owls, and other beasts, keeping their true faces hidden.

“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but older, wiser men tell me that to hold Meereen I must control its hinterlands, all the land west of Lhazar as far south as the Yunkish hills.”

“[...] A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.”

“[...] Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.”

“You spoke of help. Trade with me, then. Meereen has salt to sell, and wine …”

“Ghiscari wine?” Xaro made a sour face. “The sea provides all the salt that Qarth requires, but I would gladly take as many olives as you cared to sell me. Olive oil as well.”

“I have none to offer. The slavers burned the trees.” Olives had been grown along the shores of Slaver’s Bay for centuries; but the Meereenese had put their ancient groves to the torch as Dany’s host advanced on them, leaving her to cross a blackened wasteland. “We are replanting, but it takes seven years before an olive tree begins to bear, and thirty years before it can truly be called productive. What of copper?”

“A pretty metal, but fickle as a woman. Gold, now … gold is sincere. Qarth will gladly give you gold … for slaves.”

“Meereen is a free city of free men. [...] Go to the Dothraki if you must have slaves.”

“Two companies. The Yunkai’i will send twenty against you if they must. And when they march, they will not march alone. Tolos and Mantarys have agreed to an alliance.”

That was ill news, if true. Daenerys had sent missions to Tolos and Mantarys, hoping to find new friends to the west to balance the enmity of Yunkai to the south. Her envoys had not returned. “Meereen has made alliance with Lhazar.”

That only made him chuckle. “The Dothraki horselords call the Lhazarene the Lamb Men. When you shear them, all they do is bleat. They are not a martial people.”

Even a sheepish friend is better than none.

“My freedman—” Dany started.

“Bedslaves, barbers, and brickmakers win no battles.”

He was wrong in that, she hoped. The freedmen had been a rabble once, but she had organized the men of fighting age into companies and commanded Grey Worm to make them into soldiers.

“...The ships are yours, sweet queen. Thirteen galleys, and men to pull the oars.”

Thirteen. To be sure. Xaro was one of the Thirteen. No doubt he had convinced each of his fellow members to give up one ship. She knew the merchant prince too well to think that he would sacrifice thirteen of his own ships. “I must consider this. May I inspect these ships?”

As ever, Lord Ghael was the first to present himself, looking even more wretched than usual. “Your Radiance,” he moaned, as he fell to the marble at her feet, “the armies of the Yunkai’i descend on Astapor. I beg you, come south with all your strength!”

“I warned your king that this war of his was folly,” Dany reminded him. “He would not listen.”

“Great Cleon sought only to strike down the vile slavers of Yunkai.”

“Great Cleon is a slaver himself.”

“I know that the Mother of Dragons will not abandon us in our hour of peril. Lend us your Unsullied to defend our walls.”

And if I do, who will defend my walls? “Many of my freedmen were slaves in Astapor. Perhaps some will wish to help defend your king. That is their choice, as free men. I gave Astapor its freedom. It is up to you to defend it.”

“We are all dead, then. You gave us death, not freedom.” Ghael leapt to his feet and spat into her face.

Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel.

“My lord, I will gladly have those ships, but I cannot give you the promise that you ask.” She took his hand. “Give me the galleys, and I swear that Qarth will have the friendship of Meereen until the stars go out. Let me trade with them, and you will have a good part of the profits.”

Xaro’s glad smile died upon his lips. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”

“I cannot go.”

ADWD Daenerys IV

In his eyes, she was only a weak woman. Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.”

“Peace is my desire. You say that you can help me end the nightly slaughter in my streets. I say do it. Put an end to this shadow war, my lord. That is your quest. Give me ninety days and ninety nights without a murder, and I will know that you are worthy of a throne. Can you do that?”

When he was gone, Daenerys called Ser Barristan back. “I want the Stormcrows back in the field.”

“Your Grace? They have only now returned …”

“I want them gone. Let them scout the Yunkish hinterlands and give protection to any caravans coming over the Khyzai Pass. Henceforth Daario shall make his reports to you. Give him every honor that is due him and see that his men are well paid, but on no account admit him to my presence.”

ADWD Daenerys V

Ser Barristan remained. “Our stores are ample for the moment,” he reminded her, “and Your Grace has planted beans and grapes and wheat. Your Dothraki have harried the slavers from the hills and struck the shackles from their slaves. They are planting too, and will be bringing their crops to Meereen to market. And you will have the friendship of Lhazar.”

“How fare your orphans, ser?”

The old knight smiled. “Well, Your Grace. It is good of you to ask.” The boys were his pride. “Four or five have the makings of knights. Perhaps as many as a dozen.”

“One would be enough if he were as true as you.” The day might come soon when she would have need of every knight.

“How many pyramids has he visited?” asked Dany.

“Eleven.”

“And how long since the last murder?”

“Six-and-twenty days.” The Shavepate’s eyes brimmed with fury. It had been his notion to have the Brazen Beasts follow her betrothed and take note of all his actions.

“So far Hizdahr has made good on his promises.”

Skahaz was convinced that somewhere in Meereen the Sons of the Harpy had a highborn overlord, a secret general commanding an army of shadows. Dany did not share his belief. The Brazen Beasts had taken dozens of the Harpy’s Sons, and those who had survived their capture had yielded names when questioned sharply … too many names, it seemed to her. It would have been pleasant to think that all the deaths were the work of a single enemy who might be caught and killed, but Dany suspected that the truth was otherwise. My enemies are legion. “Hizdahr zo Loraq is a persuasive man with many friends. And he is wealthy. Perhaps he has bought this peace for us with gold, or convinced the other highborn that our marriage is in their best interests.”

“No,” she said. “I do not trust these confessions. You’ve brought me too many of them, all of them worthless.”

“Every man on that list has kin within the city. Sons and brothers, wives and daughters, mothers and fathers. Let my Brazen Beasts seize them. Their lives will win you back those ships.”

“If I send the Brazen Beasts into the pyramids, it will mean open war inside the city. I have to trust in Hizdahr. I have to hope for peace.”

She turned to Ser Barristan. “Send riders into the hills to find my bloodriders. Recall Brown Ben and the Second Sons as well.”

“And the Stormcrows, Your Grace?”

Daario. “Yes. Yes.” [...] “The Stormcrows too. Send riders after them at once.”

“...Grey Worm, are my freedmen ready for battle?”

The eunuch crossed his arms against his chest. “They are not Unsullied, but they will not shame you. This one will swear to that by spear and sword, Your Worship.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Ben, I will need your Second Sons to scout our enemies. Where they are, how fast they are advancing, how many men they have, and how they are disposed.”

“We’ll need provisions. Fresh horses too.”

“Of course. Ser Barristan will see to it.”

Brown Ben scratched his chin. “Might be we could get some o’ them to come over. If Your Grace could spare a few bags o’ gold and gems … just to give their captains a good taste, as it were … well, who knows?”

“Buy them, why not?” Dany said. That sort of thing went on all the time amongst the free companies of the Disputed Lands, she knew. “Yes, very good. Reznak, see to it. Once the Second Sons ride out, close the gates and double the watch upon the walls.”

“...We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen.”

Dany looked at him helplessly. It was good that dragons did not cry. “As you say, then. We will keep them outside the walls until this … this curse has run its course. Set up a camp for them beside the river, west of the city. We will send them what food we can. Perhaps we can separate the healthy from the sick.”

[...] “I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

“I need Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

ADWD Daenerys VI

“...Let us distribute the food, Your Grace.”

“On the morrow. I am here now. I want to see.”

Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barbersurgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.”

Many shat where they slept now, too feeble to crawl to the ditches she’d commanded them to dig.

“The gods have sent this pestilence to humble me. So many dead … I will not have them eating corpses.” She beckoned Aggo closer. “Ride to the gates and bring me Grey Worm and fifty of his Unsullied.”

“You should not linger here overlong, Your Grace. The Astapori are being fed, as you commanded. There’s no more we can do for the poor wretches. We should repair back to the city.”

“Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you.” Dany vaulted down from the horse. “I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.”

There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. “His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?”

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. Symon Stripeback and his men were pulling the living from the dead and stacking up the corpses, while Jhogo and Rakharo and their Dothraki helped those who could still walk toward the shore to bathe and wash their clothes. Aggo stared at them as if they had all gone mad, but Grey Worm knelt beside the queen and said, “This one would be of help.”

Before midday a dozen fires were burning. Columns of greasy black smoke rose up to stain a merciless blue sky. Dany’s riding clothes were stained and sooty as she stepped back from the pyres.

The priestess and the seneschal were happy to see her garbed in a tokar, a proper Meereenese lady for once, but what they really wanted was to strip her bare. Daenerys heard them out, incredulous. When they were done, she said, “I have no wish to give offense, but I will not present myself naked to Hizdahr’s mother and sisters.”

“Hizdahr zo Loraq may inspect my women’s parts after we are wed.” Khal Drogo found no fault with them, why should he? “Let his mother and his sisters examine one another and share the special cake. I shall not be eating it. Nor shall I wash the noble Hizdahr’s noble feet.” ~

“As you wish,” she sighed. “I shall marry Hizdahr in the Temple of the Graces wrapped in a white tokar fringed with baby pearls. Is there anything else?”

“After the wedding Hizdahr will be king. Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it.” Let the blood be on his hands, not mine. She rose. “If my husband wishes me to wash his feet, he must first wash mine. I will tell him so this evening.”

“Continue as we planned. Gather food, as much as you can.” If I look back I am lost. “We must close the gates and put every fighting man upon the walls. No one enters, no one leaves.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

“...Will you hold court today?”

“No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.”

[...] “...Will you come hold court?”

“After my wedding, perhaps. After the peace.”

“...Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser Barristan.

“Summon the first petitioner.”

It had been so long since she last held court that the crush of cases was almost overwhelming. The back of the hall was a solid press of people, and scuffles broke out over precedence.

[...] The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. Jhiqui brought a platter of figs and ham at midday. There seemed to be no end to the petitioners. For every two she sent off smiling, one left red- eyed or muttering.

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on.

“Would that you had come a year ago. I am pledged to wed the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

[...] “This changes nothing,” Dany said, as Irri removed her crown. “What good are three men?”

“Your Grace, I must entreat you. My father’s strength is failing, but his devotion to your cause is as strong as ever. If my manner or my person have displeased you, that is my sorrow, but—”

“If you would please me, ser, be happy for me,” Daenerys said. “This is my wedding day. They will be dancing in the Yellow City, I do not doubt.” She sighed. “Rise, my prince, and smile. One day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father’s throne, and look to Dorne for help. But on this day the Yunkai’i have my city ringed in steel. I may die before I see my Seven Kingdoms. Hizdahr may die. Westeros may be swallowed by the waves.” Dany kissed his cheek. “Come. It’s time I wed.”

ADWD Daenerys VIII

When the gluttony was done and all the half-eaten food had been cleared away—to be given to the poor who gathered below, at the queen's insistence—tall glass flutes were filled with a spiced liqueur from Qarth as dark as amber.

“Is there some man in the Second Sons who might be persuaded to … remove … Brown Ben?”

“As Daario Naharis once removed the other captains of the Stormcrows?” The old knight looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps. I would not know, Your Grace.”

No, she thought, you are too honest and too honorable. “If not, the Yunkai’i employ three other companies.”

“Rogues and cutthroats, scum of a hundred battlefields,” Ser Barristan warned, “with captains full as treacherous as Plumm.”

“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but it seems to me that we want them to be treacherous. Once, you’ll recall, I convinced the Second Sons and Stormcrows to join us.”

“If Your Grace wishes a privy word with Gylo Rhegan or the Tattered Prince, I could bring them up to your apartments.”

“This is not the time. Too many eyes, too many ears. Their absence would be noted even if you could separate them discreetly from the Yunkai’i. We must find some quieter way of reaching out to them … not tonight, but soon.”

“As you command. Though I fear this is not a task for which I am well suited. In King’s Landing work of this sort was left to Lord Littlefinger or the Spider. We old knights are simple men, only good for fighting.” He patted his sword hilt.

“Our prisoners,” suggested Dany. “The Westerosi who came over from the Windblown with the three Dornishmen. We still have them in cells, do we not? Use them.”

“Free them, you mean? Is that wise? They were sent here to worm their way into your trust, so they might betray Your Grace at the first chance.”

“Then they failed. I do not trust them. I will never trust them.” If truth be told, Dany was forgetting how to trust. “We can still use them. One was a woman. Meris. Send her back, as a … a gesture of my regard. If their captain is a clever man, he will understand.”

“The woman is the worst of all.”

“All the better.” Dany considered a moment. “We should sound out the Long Lances too. And the Company of the Cat.”

“Bloodbeard.” Ser Barristan’s frown deepened. “If it please Your Grace, we want no part of him. Your Grace is too young to remember the Ninepenny Kings, but this Bloodbeard is cut from the same savage cloth. There is no honor in him, only hunger … for gold, for glory, for blood.”

“You know more of such men than me, ser.” If Bloodbeard might be truly the most dishonorable and greedy of the sellswords, he might be the easiest to sway, but she was loath to go against Ser Barristan’s counsel in such matters. “Do as you think best. But do it soon. If Hizdahr’s peace should break, I want to be ready. I do not trust the slavers.” I do not trust my husband. “They will turn on us at the first sign of weakness.”

“The Yunkai’i grow weaker as well. The bloody flux has taken hold amongst the Tolosi, it is said, and spread across the river to the third Ghiscari legion.”

The pale mare. Daenerys sighed. Quaithe warned me of the pale mare’s coming. She told me of the Dornish prince as well, the sun’s son. She told me much and more, but all in riddles. “I cannot rely on plague to save me from my enemies. Set Pretty Meris free. At once.”

“As you command. Though … Your Grace, if I may be so bold, there is another road …”

“The Dornish road?” Dany sighed. The three Dornishmen had been at the feast, as befit Prince Quentyn’s rank, though Reznak had taken care to seat them as far as possible from her husband. Hizdahr did not seem to be of a jealous nature, but no man would be pleased by the presence of a rival suitor near his new bride. “The boy seems pleasant and well spoken, but …”

“House Martell is ancient and noble, and has been a leal friend to House Targaryen for more than a century, Your Grace. I had the honor of serving with Prince Quentyn’s greatuncle in your father’s seven. Prince Lewyn was as valiant a brother-in-arms as any man could wish for. Quentyn Martell is of the same blood, if it please Your Grace.”

“It would please me if he had turned up with these fifty thousand swords he speaks of. Instead he brings two knights and a parchment. Will a parchment shield my people from the Yunkai’i? If he had come with a fleet …”

“Sunspear has never been a sea power, Your Grace.”

“No.” Dany knew enough of Westerosi history to know that. Nymeria had landed ten thousand ships upon Dorne’s sandy shores, but when she wed her Dornish prince she had burned them all and turned her back upon the sea forever. “Dorne is too far away. To please this prince, I would need to abandon all my people. You should send him home.”

“Dornishmen are notoriously stubborn, Your Grace. Prince Quentyn’s forebears fought your own for the better part of two hundred years. He will not go without you.”

Then he will die here, Daenerys thought, unless there is more to him than I can see. “Is he still within?”

“Drinking with his knights.”

“Bring him to me. It is time he met my children.”

ADWD Daenerys IX

“How should Meereen ever come to trust the Brazen Beasts if I do not? There are good brave men beneath those masks. I put my life into their hands.” Dany smiled for him. “You fret too much, ser. I will have you beside me, what other protection do I need?”

“I am one old man, Your Grace.”

“Strong Belwas will be with me as well.”

“As you say.”

“Your Grace. We set the woman Meris free, as you commanded. Before she went, she asked to speak with you. I met with her instead. She claims this Tattered Prince meant to bring the Windblown over to your cause from the beginning. That he sent her here to treat with you secretly, but the Dornishmen unmasked them and betrayed them before she could make her own approach.”

Treachery on treachery, the queen thought wearily. Is there no end to it? “How much of this do you believe, ser?”

“Little and less, Your Grace, but those were her words.”

“Will they come over to us, if need be?”

“She says they will. But for a price.”

“Pay it.” Meereen needed iron, not gold.

“The Tattered Prince will want more than coin, Your Grace. Meris says that he wants Pentos.” “Pentos?” Her eyes narrowed. “How can I give him Pentos? It is half a world away.”

“He would be willing to wait, the woman Meris suggested. Until we march for Westeros.”

And if I never march for Westeros? “Pentos belongs to the Pentoshi. And Magister Illyrio is in Pentos. He who arranged my marriage to Khal Drogo and gave me my dragon eggs. Who sent me you, and Belwas, and Groleo. I owe him much and more. I will not repay that debt by giving his city to some sellsword. No.”

“A boy,” said Dany. “He was only a boy.”

“Six-and-ten,” Hizdahr insisted. “A man grown, who freely chose to risk his life for gold and glory. No children die today in Daznak’s, as my gentle queen in her wisdom has decreed.”

Another small victory. Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad. Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented.

It had been the custom to sentence criminals to the pits; that practice she agreed might resume, but only for certain crimes. “Murderers and rapers may be forced to fight, and all those who persist in slaving, but not thieves or debtors.”

Beasts were still allowed, though. Dany watched an elephant make short work of a pack of six red wolves. Next a bull was set against a bear in a bloody battle that left both animals torn and dying. “The flesh is not wasted,” said Hizdahr. “The butchers use the carcasses to make a healthful stew for the hungry. Any man who presents himself at the Gates of Fate may have a bowl.”

“A good law,” Dany said. You have so few of them. “We must make certain that this tradition is continued.”

The advice Dany received

ADWD Daenerys I

“Your Grace,” he said, “I fear your eunuchs are ill suited for the tasks you set them.”

Dany settled on her bench and wrapped her pelt about her shoulders once again. “The Unsullied are my finest warriors.”

“Soldiers, not warriors, if it please Your Grace. They were made for the battlefield, to stand shoulder to shoulder behind their shields with their spears thrust out before them. Their training teaches them to obey, fearlessly, perfectly, without thought or hesitation … not to unravel secrets or ask questions.”

“The Mother of Dragons must don the tokar or be forever hated,” warned the Green Grace, Galazza Galare.

“Your Grace has not asked for my counsel,” said Skahaz Shavepate, “but I say that blood must pay for blood. Take one man from each of the families I have named and kill him. The next time one of yours is slain, take two from each great House and kill them both. There will not be a third murder.”

Reznak squealed in distress. “Noooo … gentle queen, such savagery would bring down the ire of the gods. We will find the murderers, I promise you, and when we do they will prove to be baseborn filth, you shall see.”

“Your Magnificence,” whispered Reznak mo Reznak in her ear, “it is customary for the city to claim one-tenth of all the profits from the fighting pits, after expenses, as a tax. That coin might be put to many noble uses.”

Reznak and the Green Grace had been urging Dany to take a Meereenese noble for her husband, to reconcile the city to her rule. [...] The Shavepate had offered to set aside his wife for her, but the notion made her shudder. Hizdahr at least knew how to smile.

Grazdan, she had been forewarned, was a cousin of the Green Grace, whose support she had found invaluable. The priestess was a voice for peace, acceptance, and obedience to lawful authority. I can give her cousin a respectful hearing, whatever he desires.

“...Must we pay good silver for every lamb that goes astray between Yunkai and the Skahazadhan?”

“No, Magnificence.” Reznak bowed. “Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?”

ADWD Daenerys II

“Magnificence,” murmured Reznak mo Reznak, “we cannot know that these great nobles mean to join your enemies. More like they are simply making for their estates in the hills.”

“They will not mind us keeping their gold safe, then. There is nothing to buy in the hills.”

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Dany grimaced. Even her own people would give no rest about the matter. Reznak mo Reznak stressed the coin to be made through taxes. The Green Grace said that reopening the pits would please the gods. The Shavepate felt it would win her support against the Sons of the Harpy. “Let them fight,” grunted Strong Belwas, who had once been a champion in the pits. Ser Barristan suggested a tourney instead; his orphans could ride at rings and fight a mêlée with blunted weapons, he said, a suggestion Dany knew was as hopeless as it was well-intentioned. It was blood the Meereenese yearned to see, not skill. Elsewise the fighting slaves would have worn armor. Only the little scribe Missandei seemed to share the queen’s misgivings.

"[...] Will you hear my friends? There are seven of them as well.” [...] They have come to add their voices to mine own, and ask Your Grace to let our fighting pits reopen.”

Dany knew his seven, by name if not by sight. All had been amongst the most famed of Meereen’s fighting slaves … and it had been the fighting slaves, freed from their shackles by her sewer rats, who led the uprising that won the city for her. She owed them a blood debt. “I will hear you,” she allowed.

One by one, each of them asked her to let the fighting pits reopen. “Why?” she demanded, when Ithoke had finished. “You are no longer slaves, doomed to die at a master’s whim. I freed you. Why should you wish to end your lives upon the scarlet sands?”

The Shavepate had urged her to put the man to death. “At least rip out his tongue. This man’s lie could destroy us all, Magnificence.”

ADWD Daenerys III

“Daenerys, let me be honest with you, as befits a friend. You will not make Meereen rich and fat and peaceful. You will only bring it to destruction, as you did Astapor. You are aware that there was battle joined at the Horns of Hazzat? The Butcher King has fled back to his palace, his new Unsullied running at his heels.”

“This is known.” Brown Ben Plumm had sent back word of the battle from the field. “The Yunkai’i have bought themselves new sellswords, and two legions from New Ghis fought beside them.”

“Two will soon become four, then ten. And Yunkish envoys have been sent to Myr and Volantis to hire more blades. The Company of the Cat, the Long Lances, the Windblown. Some say that the Wise Masters have bought the Golden Company as well.”

[...]“I have sellswords too.”

“Two companies. The Yunkai’i will send twenty against you if they must. And when they march, they will not march alone. Tolos and Mantarys have agreed to an alliance.”

[...] “And whilst you are razing Yunkai, my sweet, Meereen shall rise behind you. Do not close your eyes to your peril, Daenerys. Your eunuchs are fine soldiers, but they are too few to match the hosts that Yunkai will send against you, once Astapor has fallen.”

[...] “Bedslaves, barbers, and brickmakers win no battles.”

[...] “Not all your enemies are in the Yellow City. Beware men with cold hearts and blue lips. You had not been gone from Qarth a fortnight when Pyat Pree set out with three of his fellow warlocks, to seek for you in Pentos.”

“Of him, little and less. These ships, though … Your Grace, with these ships we might be home before year’s end.” [...]

“If they were so unseaworthy, they could not have crossed the sea from Qarth,” Ser Barristan pointed out, “but Your Grace was wise to insist upon inspection. I will take Admiral Groleo to the galleys at first light with his captains and two score of his sailors. We can crawl over every inch of those ships.”

Ser Barristan went to one knee before her. “My queen, your realm has need of you. You are not wanted here, but in Westeros men will flock to your banners by the thousands, great lords and noble knights. ‘She is come,’ they will shout to one another, in glad voices. ‘Prince Rhaegar’s sister has come home at last.’”

“If they love me so much, they will wait for me.”

Xaro’s glad smile died upon his lips. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”

“I cannot go.”

ADWD Daenerys IV

“The Shavepate would feed them to your dragons, it is said. A life for a life. For every Brazen Beast cut down, he would have a child die.”

Dany pushed her food about her plate. She dare not glance over to where Grazhar and Qezza stood, for fear that she might cry. The Shavepate has a harder heart than mine. They had fought about the hostages half a dozen times. “The Sons of the Harpy are laughing in their pyramids,” Skahaz said, just this morning. “What good are hostages if you will not take their heads?” In his eyes, she was only a weak woman. Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.”

“Then heed me now and marry.”

“Ah.” Dany had been expecting this.

“I am sworn to serve Your Grace, and to keep you safe from harm wherever you may go. My place is by your side, whether here or in King’s Landing … but your place is back in Westeros, upon the Iron Throne that was your father’s. The Seven Kingdoms will never accept Hizdahr zo Loraq as king.”

“Attack,” he said at once. “A man surrounded by foes cannot defend himself. Try, and the axe will take you in the back whilst you are parrying the sword. No. When faced with many enemies, choose the weakest, kill him, ride over him, and escape.”

[...] “You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them,” Daario went on. “Kill them all and take their treasures, I say. Whisper the command, and your Daario will make you a pile of their heads taller than this pyramid.”

“If I knew who they were—”

“Zhak and Pahl and Merreq. Them, and all the rest. The Great Masters. Who else would it be?”

He is as bold as he is bloody. “We have no proof this is their work. Would you have me slaughter my own subjects?”

“Your own subjects would gladly slaughter you.”

He had been so long away, Dany had almost forgotten what he was. Sellswords were treacherous by nature, she reminded herself. Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be more than he is. He will never be the stuff of kings. “The pyramids are strong,” she explained to him. “We could take them only at great cost. The moment we attack one the others will rise against us.”

“Then winkle them out of their pyramids on some pretext. A wedding might serve. Why not? Promise your hand to Hizdahr and all the Great Masters will come to see you married. When they gather in the Temple of the Graces, turn us loose upon them.”

Dany was appalled. He is a monster. A gallant monster, but a monster still. “Do you take me for the Butcher King?”

“Better the butcher than the meat. All kings are butchers. Are queens so different?”

“This queen is.”

Daario shrugged. “Most queens have no purpose but to warm some king’s bed and pop out sons for him. If that’s the sort of queen you mean to be, best marry Hizdahr.”

ADWD Daenerys V

Her admiral’s counsel had proved worse than useless. “Let them see your dragons,” Groleo said. “Let the Yunkishmen have a taste of fire, and the trade will flow again.”

“Those ships are strangling us, and all my admiral can do is talk of dragons,” Dany said. “You are my admiral, are you not?”

“An admiral without ships.”

“Build ships.”

“Warships cannot be made from brick. The slavers burned every stand of timber within twenty leagues of here.”

“Then ride out two-and-twenty leagues. I will give you wagons, workers, mules, whatever you require.”

“I am a sailor, not a shipwright. I was sent to fetch Your Grace back to Pentos. Instead you brought us here and tore my Saduleon to pieces for some nails and scraps of wood. I will never see her like again. I may never see my home again, nor my old wife. It was not me who refused the ships this Daxos offered. I cannot fight the Qartheen with fishing boats.”

[...] “There must be something we can do.”

“Aye, and I’ve told you what. These ships are made of rope and pitch and canvas, of Qohorik pine and teak from Sothoros, old oak from Great Norvos, yew and ash and spruce. Wood, Your Grace. Wood burns. The dragons—”

“I will hear no more about my dragons. Leave me. Go pray to your Pentoshi gods for a storm to sink our foes.”

“And how long since the last murder?”

“Six-and-twenty days.” The Shavepate’s eyes brimmed with fury. It had been his notion to have the Brazen Beasts follow her betrothed and take note of all his actions.

“So far Hizdahr has made good on his promises.”

“How? The Sons of the Harpy have put down their knives, but why? Because the noble Hizdahr asked sweetly? He is one of them, I tell you. That’s why they obey him. He may well be the Harpy.”

“If there is a Harpy.” Skahaz was convinced that somewhere in Meereen the Sons of the Harpy had a highborn overlord, a secret general commanding an army of shadows.

“If he is not the Harpy, he knows him. I can find the truth of that easy enough. Give me your leave to put Hizdahr to the question, and I will bring you a confession.”

“[...] The Great Master Hizdahr plays Your Worship for a fool. Do you want a serpent in your bed?”

Skahaz drew a parchment scroll from his sleeve. “Your Worship should have a look at this. A list of all the Meereenese ships in the blockade, with their captains. Great Masters all.”

Dany studied the scroll. All the ruling families of Meereen were named: Hazkar, Merreq, Quazzar, Zhak, Rhazdar, Ghazeen, Pahl, even Reznak and Loraq. “What am I to do with a list of names?”

“Every man on that list has kin within the city. Sons and brothers, wives and daughters, mothers and fathers. Let my Brazen Beasts seize them. Their lives will win you back those ships.”

“If I send the Brazen Beasts into the pyramids, it will mean open war inside the city. I have to trust in Hizdahr. I have to hope for peace.”

“Mouths on feet. And sick, you say?” Reznak wrung his hands. “Your Worship must not allow them in the city.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Brown Ben Plumm. “I’m no maester, mind you, but I know you got to keep the bad apples from the good.”

“Them, and dragons,” said Brown Ben Plumm, with a grin.

“In the pit, in chains,” wailed Reznak mo Reznak. “What good are dragons that cannot be controlled? Even the Unsullied grow fearful when they must open the doors to feed them.”

“If there’s no dragons in the balance, well … we should leave before them Yunkish bastards close the trap … only first, make the slavers pay to see our backs. They pay the khals to leave their cities be, why not us? Sell Meereen back to them and start west with wagons full o’ gold and gems and such.”

“I defeated the Yunkai’i before. I will defeat them again. Where, though? How?”

“You mean to take the field?” The Shavepate’s voice was thick with disbelief. “That would be folly. Our walls are taller and thicker than the walls of Astapor, and our defenders are more valiant. The Yunkai’i will not take this city easily.”

Ser Barristan disagreed. “I do not think we should allow them to invest us. Theirs is a patchwork host at best. These slavers are no soldiers. If we take them unawares …”

“Small chance of that,” the Shavepate said. “The Yunkai’i have many friends inside the city. They will know.”

“Your Grace, I have known the bloody flux to destroy whole armies when left to spread unchecked. The seneschal is right. We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen.”

“What do you counsel, ser?”

“Battle,” said Ser Barristan. “Meereen is overcrowded and full of hungry mouths, and you have too many enemies within. We cannot long withstand a siege, I fear. Let me meet the foe as he comes north, on ground of my own choosing.”

ADWD Daenerys VI

“I would feel better if Your Grace would return to the city.” The many-colored brick walls of Meereen were half a mile back. “The bloody flux has been the bane of every army since the Dawn Age. Let us distribute the food, Your Grace.”

It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved.

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan, “the Unsullied are your best fighters. We dare not loose this plague amongst them. Let the Astapori bury their own dead.”

“They are too feeble,” said Symon Stripeback.

Dany said, “More food might make them stronger.”

Symon shook his head. “Food should not be wasted on the dying, Your Worship. We do not have enough to feed the living.”

“If we were to share our food equally …”

“… the Astapori would eat through their portion in days, and we would have that much less for the siege.”

“You should not linger here overlong, Your Grace. The Astapori are being fed, as you commanded. There’s no more we can do for the poor wretches. We should repair back to the city.”

“But,” said Reznak mo Reznak, blinking, “but you must, Your Worship. Before a marriage it is traditional for the women of the man’s house to examine the bride’s womb and, ah … her female parts. To ascertain that they are well formed and, ah …”

“… fertile,” finished Galazza Galare. “An ancient ritual, Your Radiance. Three Graces shall be present to witness the examination and say the proper prayers.”

“Yes,” said Reznak, “and afterward there is a special cake. A women’s cake, baked only for betrothals. Men are not allowed to taste it. I am told it is delicious. Magical.”

And if my womb is withered and my female parts accursed, is there a special cake for that as well?

“Magnificence, you do not understand,” protested Reznak. “The washing of the feet is hallowed by tradition. It signifies that you shall be your husband’s handmaid. The wedding garb is fraught with meaning too. The bride is dressed in dark red veils above a tokar of white silk, fringed with baby pearls.”

The queen of the rabbits must not be wed without her floppy ears. “All those pearls will make me rattle when I walk.”

“The pearls symbolize fertility. The more pearls Your Worship wears, the more healthy children she will bear.”

“If we should wed by Westerosi rites ...”

“The gods of Ghis would deem it no true union.” Galazza Galare’s face was hidden behind a veil of green silk. Only her eyes showed, green and wise and sad. “In the eyes of the city you would be the noble Hizdahr’s concubine, not his lawful wedded wife. Your children would be bastards. Your Worship must marry Hizdahr in the Temple of the Graces, with all the nobility of Meereen on hand to bear witness to your union.”

“One more small matter, Your Worship,” said Reznak. “To celebrate your nuptials, it would be most fitting if you would allow the fighting pits to open once again. It would be your wedding gift to Hizdahr and to your loving people, a sign that you had embraced the ancient ways and customs of Meereen.”

“And most pleasing to the gods as well,” the Green Grace added in her soft and kindly voice.

A bride price paid in blood. Daenerys was weary of fighting this battle. Even Ser Barristan did not think she could win. “No ruler can make a people good,” Selmy had told her. “Baelor the Blessed prayed and fasted and built the Seven as splendid a temple as any gods could wish for, yet he could not put an end to war and want.” A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself.

ADWD Daenerys VII

“...Will you hold court today?”

“No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.”

“Some are his, some are yours. The ones you freed.”

“Are you chiding me?”

“The ones you call your children. They want their mother.”

“You are. You are chiding me.”

“Only a little, bright heart. Will you come hold court?”

“After my wedding, perhaps. After the peace.”

“This after that you speak of never comes. You should hold court. My new men do not believe that you are real. The ones who came over from the Windblown. Bred and born in Westeros, most of them, full of tales about Targaryens. They want to see one with their own eyes.[”]

“This changes everything,” the old knight said.

ADWD Daenerys VIII

“As you command. Though … Your Grace, if I may be so bold, there is another road …”

“Sunspear has never been a sea power, Your Grace.”

“Dornishmen are notoriously stubborn, Your Grace. Prince Quentyn’s forebears fought your own for the better part of two hundred years. He will not go without you.”

Then he will die here, Daenerys thought, unless there is more to him than I can see.

ADWD Daenerys IX

“I would be happier if you had Unsullied guards about you today, Your Grace,” the old knight said, as Hizdahr went to greet his cousin. “Half of these Brazen Beasts are untried freedmen.” And the other half are Meereenese of doubtful loyalty, he left unsaid. Selmy mistrusted all the Meereenese, even shavepates.

“And untried they shall remain unless we try them.”

“A mask can hide many things, Your Grace. Is the man behind the owl mask the same owl who guarded you yesterday and the day before? How can we know?”

Ser Barristan glanced uneasily to left and right. Ghiscari faces were visible on the terraces, looking down with cool and unsympathetic eyes. “Your Grace, I do not like this halt. This may be some trap. The Sons of the Harpy—”

“—have been tamed,” declared Hizdahr zo Loraq. “Why should they seek to harm my queen when she has taken me for her king and consort? Now help that man, as my sweet queen has commanded.”

Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented.

#daenerys targaryen #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones #dany passages

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quentinsquill · 5 years ago

Text

Fic: “The Muttgicians”

The Muttgicians Author: Lexalicious70 Fandom: The Magicians Genres: Crossover,(The Magicians/Those People) sequel, established relationship Rating: R for strong language Word Count: 4,861 Summary: After Quentin’s first-year twin brother, Sebastian Blackworth, accepts a bet from a peer about who can cast the most powerful spell, Eliot and Quentin find themselves accidentally transformed in a way that may be permanent, unless Sebastian, Margo and their friends can find a counter-spell before time runs out. You can read the first part of the crossover, “Those Magic Changes,” on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11513553

A/N: This is for the @whitespiresarmory Writing Challenge, week 1, “Crossovers.” I don’t own The Magicians, this is just for fun. Comments and kudos are magic: enjoy!

The Muttgicians

By Lexalicious70 (all_hale_eliot)

“So, what was the hardest spell of the year?”

Sebastian Blackworth-Coldwater glanced up from the drink he was mixing. Around him, the first years’ end-of-the-semester party was in full swing. Like his twin Quentin, who was a second year and had been accepted to Brakebills the year before, (and before each had known the other had existed,) Sebastian had been lumped in with the Physical Kids to even out their ranks. He stirred his gin and tonic as he considered his housemate’s question. He didn’t particularly like Devon Shea, or care for people in general, but what the hell, it was a party, and such social occasions required small talk.

“For me it was the thermogenic spell, where we had to control the temperature of that glass orb without it cracking. I was ready to hurl the damn thing out the window by the third day.” He sipped his drink, grimaced, and added a touch more gin.

“Ha!” Jay Tannis crowed from the couch. “That was nothing! I can do way harder magic than that.”

Sebastian frowned; the skinny red-haired first year annoyed him worse than a persistent fly at an outdoor Sunday brunch. Devon, already three glasses of wine into the festivities, rose to the bait.

“Piss off, you could not!”

“Yes I could, and I’ll prove it!”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and Tannis pointed at him.

“You think I’m full of shit?”

“If the toilet bowl fits.”

“Okay smartass, let’s bet! You and me, Blackwater!”

“It’s Blackworth. Blackworth-Coldwater,” he said, even as he felt heat creep up his neck.

“Right, right. Your brother is a big shot second year.”

“Let’s not trade witticisms, as you seem woefully unarmed. You want to bet on what kind of magic you can do?”

Tannis sat up and swirled his tumbler in one hand. The melted ice inside flashed and winked as it caught the common room’s lighting.

“Fine. Here’s the deal: we each draw a third-year spell from a hat or bowl. Whoever can cast their chosen spell successfully is the winner.”

“And the prize?” Sebastian asked, warming to the idea. Being able to cast complicated spells made you popular at Brakebills, he’d learned that much, and leading his class in talent would set him apart from Quentin and maybe get him noticed by some third or fourth-year boy.

“How’s a hundred bucks sound, Blackworth?”

“Like you don’t know how to place a real wager,” Sebastian replied. Tannis scowled.

“Then name the amount!”

“$500.”

“Uh, guys?” Devon broke in. “I don’t know if we should—”

“You’re on!” Tannis reeled off the couch to grab Sebastian’s hand. Sebastian shook.

“It’s a bet.”

It wasn’t difficult to find the third-year spells. A few inquiries and several bribes later, and Sebastian found himself with a transformation spell that turned animals into other species, such as goldfish into horses, or horses into cats. Sebastian, his rival, and a smattering of first years met in the field near the school’s Welter’s board to cast the spells, unaware that Devon had gone to Quentin about the bet. Now, as Sebastian stood before a goldfish bowl that contained two small, multicolored koi fish, Tannis mocked him.

“Well go on and do it, big shot!”

“Shut up and let me cast,” Sebastian muttered, raising his hands. He planned to turn the fish into dogs because they seemed the easiest to visualize. He began to unpack the spell and was two minutes into the incantation when he heard his brother’s voice shout out from nearby.

“Sebastian! Stop!”

Sebastian started, turning at the shout before he’d even realized it, the spell building all around him. Quentin and his partner, Eliot Waugh, were running toward him. Quentin raised both hands to scrub the spell when it bloomed outward, freeing itself from the inexperienced magician’s tenuous hold and striking his brother and Eliot. The air around them rippled and then seemed to burst with large, luminous sparks. Acrid smoke rose up and Sebastian coughed, fighting for breath against the onslaught. He waved away what he could, blinking, and then his heart gave an unsteady whack before it crouched, slamming in uneasy thumps against his ribcage. It felt like the wingbeats of an injured bird.

Two dogs lay on their sides where Quentin and Eliot had stood a moment before. One was medium sized with fine tawny-gold hair and long, silky ears. The other was twice the size of the long-eared dog and jet black, its fur a riot of glossy curls. Tannis stepped forward, staring.

“Oh shit . . . look what you did!” He wiped a hand across his mouth and then fled, most of the spectators taking his cue and retreating as well. Only Devon stayed, his pale blue eyes wide and unblinking.

“Fuck,” He said at last. “Oh fuck, Sebastian!”

Sebastian walked over to the dogs, all eyes under the hand clapped over his mouth. There was no doubt to what had happened—Quentin’s messenger bag sat near the brown dog, and a scattering of rings—Eliot’s—lay near the black dog’s front paws. Sebastian scooped them up and shoved them in his pocket as he looked up at Devon.

“Go back to the cottage and get Margo Hanson. Do you know who she is?”

“Knockout of a second year? Killer figure, won’t give me the time of day?”

“That’s her. Tell her to come out here, that I’m—” Sebastian looked down at the magic-addled dogs.

“That Eliot is in trouble.”

****

“What in the name of Jesus H. Baldheaded CHRIST were you thinking? Are you really this stupid?”

Sebastian squared his shoulders against Margo’s onslaught. They’d been friends, more or less, since Sebastian had helped his twin find the courage to ask Eliot out and end their mutual pining. He could appreciate her cool, tough exterior and quick wit, but he’d never been the target of her ire before.

“No, I’m not stupid—”

“Look again, hotshot!” Margo snapped, pointing to the dogs that sat at the foot of her bed, side by side. The black dog’s amber-colored eyes rolled toward her every few moments and he barked almost ceaselessly, trying to form words. The little tawny dog sat with its liquid-brown eyes downcast, its long ears drooping.

“It was a bet, Margo! We’d all been drinking and that little sparrowfart Jay Tannis was baiting me, inferring that I only got into Brakebills because of Q—”

“And you believed him enough to try and practice magic that’s way above your pay grade?”

“I—not completely—sometimes it’s very difficult, being Quentin’s twin. We may have been raised by different people, but we wear the same face, so there’s no denying who I am! It’s like it was with my father! I felt like I had something to prove!”

“Oh, you proved something, all right.” She turned and put a gentle hand on the big black dog’s head. “Shhhh, sweetie, I know, I want to rip his throat out too,” she said as Eliot gave a low growl and shook himself. “but that’s not going to help. What we need is someone who knows how to reverse this.”

“You aren’t going to tell the dean, are you?” Sebastian asked. “He’ll expel me—he’ll mindwipe me! I’ll have to go back to Manhattan with nothing!”

“Hey, Blanche! Did I say anything about going to the dean? Besides, even if I was sure he wouldn’t kick you out, I wouldn’t tell him anyway.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No. El and I have never entirely trusted him.” Margo plucked at her full lower lip. “Where did you and discount Ron Weasley get these spells?”

“I’m pretty sure he bribed some third years, but he ran after the spell went wrong and I don’t know where he is now.”

Margo’s dark eyes narrowed.

“That’s what locator spells are for, and I think I know someone who can help us persuade your betting buddy to give up some names.”

****

“You have to believe me—I don’t remember!” Jay Tannis whined, his puny hands raised in a warding-off gesture as Penny pinned him to a tree in the library courtyard with only his body language and the force of his stare.

“I don’t believe you,” Margo countered, admiring Penny’s talent as an enforcer. The traveler had been loathe to get involved until she’d reminded him that Eliot was the principal supplier of their group’s Adderall.

“I’m fairly sure Eliot won’t be able to make any deals as a dog, so unless you know someone who speaks Fido, we all have something at stake!” She’d told him, and Penny, who appreciated his Adderall, had agreed to help.

“I was drunk! I bribed some guy at a party at the healer’s cottage. That’s all I remember!” Tannis said. Penny stepped closer until they were nose to nose.

“Think harder.”

“I—man, do you know what he’d do to me if I gave you his name?”

“Man, do you know what I’ll do to you if you don’t?” Penny countered, glaring down at the first year, who was at least six inches shorter. Tannis cringed and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Okay, all right! It was Spencer Carmichael! He lives in the healing kids cottage near the river!”

“We appreciate the information,” Margo nodded at Penny, who stepped away. The redhead squeaked and bolted like a flushed rat and Penny scowled after him.

“Seems like him and Quentin’s spare don’t have the sense nature gave a fucking goat. You sure this is all worth it?”

“Q would never forgive us if we let Sebastian get expelled. Besides, they wouldn’t be first years if they had any fucking sense. C’mon . . . let’s visit the healer’s cottage.

Spencer Carmichael was, Margo observed, like a weak imitation of Eliot. He seemed faux bored with everything around him and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, the smell of which didn’t do much to complement the odor of the rich patchouli incense that seemed to burn in every corner of the cottage’s common room.

“So I gave him the spells,” the handsome blond flicked the ash of his cigarette away in a disdainful manner. “It’s not my responsibility.”

“Except that one of those spells turned my friends into dogs!” Margo snapped. “So now we need the counter-spell to undo this abracalabrador bullshit before Fogg or one of the other professors finds out!”

“What will you give me in return?” The older boy asked, then grinned as Margo narrowed her eyes at him. “This is Brakebills, Hot Lips, nothing is free.”

“Call me that again and what I’ll give you is your balls in an imitation Fendi bag! Seems to be about your speed!”

“Violent!” Spencer chirped as he took another long draw on his smoke. “But by all means, threaten instead of bargain. After 72 hours, the transformation spell becomes permanent.”

“Fuck.” Margo hissed as she folded her arms across her chest. “Fine! Name your price.”

“Word has it you and the Physical Kids have portals to all the best pubs, all over the world. Give me access, and I’ll give you the counter-spell. Also, if the dean or any of the professors find out about this, you and that skinny first year don’t know me and we never met. Deal?”

“Deal,” Margo nodded as she shook on it. Spencer gave her and Penny a smug smile as he went to a bookshelf and pulled a spellbook free. He flipped through it, clipped a page, and handed it over.

“I’ll need that returned as soon as possible.”

“Oh, I’ll try my best to hurry this along,” Margo drawled. Spencer’s answering sardonic smile was familiar, but seeing it on anyone but Eliot made Margo want to rip this asshole’s eyeballs out and use the tendons for garters. Penny was much more succinct as they left the cottage.

“What a fucking prick.”

“At least we have the spell,” She replied. As they rounded a corner they all but ran into Sebastian, whose short, dark blond hair stood up in spikes. His Brakebills blazer was torn, his tie missing.

“What the shit happened to you?” Penny asked, and Sebastian raked a hand through his hair that reminded Margo of the similar gesture Quentin used when he felt anxious. Sebastian’s hair was shorter, though, so instead of falling to one side, it now stuck out in tufts that made him look like an anxiety-ridden porcupine.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I got lost in that Goddamned hedge maze—” He swallowed against what looked like an extremely dry throat. “I took the spell to the library to see what I could find out—”

“What about Quentin and El?” Margo asked, and Sebastian made a dismissive gesture.

“I locked then in my room with a pan of water. I didn’t find a counter-spell at the library, but what I did discover is that we only have three days to undo what happened. If we wait too long, my brother and Eliot will be dogs permanently!”

“Okay, calm down White Rabbit!” Margo reached out and smoothed down Sebastian’s hair. “We’ve got the counter-spell, and we have plenty of time.”

“I can’t believe you found out who gave Jay those spells!” Sebastian said as they headed back toward the Physical Kids cottage.

“We were highly motivated,” Penny replied. It was nearly sunset now, and as the three magicians headed up the walkway, they heard a crash and a startled shout from within, followed by a woman’s shriek of either surprise or fright. A series of sharp barks followed, and the cottage door slammed open. Eliot and Quentin streaked from the cottage, yelping, their tails tucked, as a freckled first year named Donna Denker swung at them with a broom. The dogs ducked around Margo and the others and headed west, toward the school’s borders.

“No! Wait! Eliot, Quentin!” Margo called after the retreating figures. Donna frowned.

“Dogs aren’t allowed in the group areas! Those mongrels broke out of an upstairs room and attacked me!”

“They wouldn’t attack anyone! They’re not—” Margo reached out and yanked the broom from her hand. “You have no idea what you just did.”

“We have to find them!” Sebastian took a few steps backward. “Come on!”

Margo threw the broom at Donna’s feet.

“Here! You’ll need this for when you need to get back to Oz after someone drops a house on your sister!” She paused to tug off her heels and fled after Sebastian. Penny rolled his eyes but trotted off after them. The grass was dry but they could see where the dogs had passed and at one point, Penny nearly stepped in some fresh evidence and cursed as he hopped to avoid it.

“Shit!” Sebastian shouted suddenly. “Shit, wait!”

Up ahead, the edge of Brakebills gave way to a rural route that was used mostly by camping juggernauts and townies, and Margo’s heart dropped when she saw a hefty man in a khaki uniform slamming the back doors of a city vehicle. Frantic barking could be heard from within as the man climbed into the van.

“Wait!” Sebastian called again, leaning to one side as a stitch bit into his ribs. The magical barrier prevented the man from hearing, however, and he drove away with two stray dogs—one small, tawny cocker spaniel and larger black mutt with amber eyes—toward Troy and the closest animal transfer center. Behind the barrier, Sebastian, Penny and Margo traded stricken glanced as the sun went down and cast long shadows on the now-deserted road.

****

Two days later

“We’re running out of options.”

Margo raised her head from the flickering laptop screen she’d been staring at for what seemed like a major portion of her life, scanning local animal intake websites and looking up phone numbers for shelters in search of Quentin and Eliot. The spell would become permanent at sunset, in less than nine hours, and there was still no sign of them. The idea that they had been taken to some pound and euthanized that same day lurked in the back of Margo’s mind, the thought curled up like an adder, and Sebastian’s words only made it coil more tightly.

They can’t be dead. Eliot cannot be dead, so just stop it, girl, stop it . . .

“The city pound in Troy said their animal control officer picked up seven dogs that day on Rural Route 7. Two of them had to be Eliot and Quentin. They were taken to an intake facility that separates adoptable dogs from those that are sick beyond help or too aggressive to be adopted out. The intake place is mostly run by a skeleton staff of volunteers, so the records they keep are sketchy. Local shelters in the five boroughs accept dogs from there, so . . .”

“So that’s a huge area with multiple shelters, including ones run by unlicensed people who want to try and give strays a second chance,” Sebastian sighed. “Are you sure a locator spell wouldn’t work?”

“It’d work if they were human. But they’re under a spell, and it’s like trying to tune in a radio station in a mountain overpass. There’s just too much interference and the original signal is muted.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Sebastian asked, and Margo warred with her irritation as she opened her email. There was a message there from one of the intake facility volunteers with a link to a Facebook page, and she frowned. Facebook was a hellsite, as far as she was concerned, good for little more than the messenger app, but she clicked the link anyway. The page was from a shelter in Queens called Happy Tails, and Margo’s heartbeat quickened as she hovered over the “new arrivals” link. She scrolled down and there, sitting in a concrete dog run, were Quentin and Eliot. They bore collars—red for Eliot, purple for Quentin, and Margo ran a hand across her mouth.

“It’s them! Jesus . . . Sebastian look, it’s them!”

Sebastian crossed the room to peer over her shoulder, his dark eyes wide.

“Rufus (lab mix) and Jingles (cocker spaniel). Caught running together near the Hudson, in Troy.”

“Please God, don’t tell me they were neutered,” Margo muttered, but tears of relief burned in the back of her throat. She jumped up from the chair. “We need to make a portal to Queens before the sun sets and it’s a lifetime of flea dips and Alpo for Q and El!”

****

“Mommy! Mommy look, I want that one! The Lady and the Tramp doggie!”

Quentin raised his head as the young mother and her daughter paused at the door to the concrete run. His human memories and consciousness were fading with the day, and coherent human thoughts were now coming in brief sentences, tinged with confusion. Eliot had bayed and thrown himself against the fence separating them the first day they’d been brought here until the volunteers housed them together, and they’d spent two nights curled up with each other, shivering with fear and uncertainty. Quentin wasn’t sure how much Eliot remembered, but he was grateful that they’d been brought to this place together.

The chain-link door to their run swung open and one of the volunteers knelt down.

“This is Jingles. He was brought here with that black dog, we think they’d been running together for some time.”

Jingles? Not Jingles—Quentin. Quentin, me . . . ?

The little girl crouched next to him and petted his head. It was pleasant enough and he could sense that she was a gentle child, but he couldn’t go with her. He was a person, not a shelter dog. Wasn’t he?

Eliot stalked close to the mother and child and got in between them and Quentin, and another volunteer clipped a leash to Eliot’s collar and forced him back. Eliot tossed his head and strained against the leash as another clip hooked around Quentin’s collar and he was led from the run. He looked over his shoulder as Eliot began to bay and fight the leash as the volunteer clipped it to a metal hook inside the run. Quentin whimpered and tried to turn back, but the little girl picked him up.

“C’mon, Jingles!” Her tone was merry. “We’re gonna take you home!”

No! Home Brakebills not you, home Eliot, Margo!

“He’ll have to be neutered, of course,” the mother was saying. “And vaccinated.” She glanced over her shoulder, frowning, at Eliot’s howling. “And that one should be put down. He seems very unpredictable.”

“We plan to work with him, ma’am,” the volunteer replied. “I’m sure once he’s neutered, he’ll be much calmer.”

New-ter . . . ? Quentin blinked. New-ter—oh nononononono, vet bad no snip snip, no! He wriggled and leapt from the girl’s arms, and she cried out after him as he ran back toward Eliot.

“Jingles no! Come back!”

Eliot looked up as Quentin raced toward the dog run. He’d already chewed through the leash, and one limp section hung from his collar. Quentin leapt up and pawed open the latch before giving three short, sharp barks to his friend. They raced from the run together, toward the open gate at the end of the row. A volunteer stepped in their way and Eliot bared his teeth at him, never slowing as they reached the gate. The kid yelped and stepped aside as Eliot’s teeth flashed and he and Quentin raced across the shelter’s yards, thick with dog pens, to the open road beyond.

“Shut the main doors!” Someone called, and Quentin cowered as the sound of the gates being pulled shut reverberated in his ears. Eliot rounded him, herding him in the other direction, where a low fence ran along the other side of the shelter’s property line. In the distance, Quentin could hear the little girl crying and the human that was left in him prickled with guilt,

But oh no, no snippy vet no, bad, so bad

but he couldn’t allow them to separate him from Eliot or let them do the new-ter.

Eliot was racing ahead of him now and Quentin knew he intended to jump the fence, but from his vantage point, it looked impossibly high. He leapt up with a grunt and began to scrabble up the chain link, his rear legs flailing. Eliot cleared the fence with one motion, but the trailing end of the chewed leash caught between two sections as he landed and he gave a strangled yelp of pain, his amber eyes bulging. Quentin toppled over the edge and began to bark in pure canine panic. Behind them, the sun began to sink. Eliot’s body writhed as he fought the leash, and then voices called out from behind him. The words made no sense, but they were growing louder and then oh! Bright flash, so bright, are we die--?

“Quentin! Quentin stop, it’s me!”

Quentin came back to his human self to find his brother Sebastian holding onto his hindquarters while Margo worked a section of frayed leash off a fence nearby. Eliot hung from the other end, gasping, his long fingers trying to work his collar—collar??—free. Sebastian gave him a shake.

“Quentin, look at me!”

He thumped down onto the hard-packed dirt and turned to gaze at Sebastian. His twin looked relieved, and there was a brightness in his eyes that threatened to spill over onto his cheeks. Human awareness was creeping back into him now, and he realized he was naked, all but—

“Here, let me, uh . . . get that off you.” Sebastian reached out and unsnapped the purple collar’s catch. Eliot freed himself a moment later, wheezing and coughing. Voices sounded in the distance, and Margo looked up.

“Fuck, it’s the shelter people!” She opened a portal and all but shoved Eliot through, not seeming to care that he was completely nude. “Sebastian, come on!” She called. Quentin tried to get to his feet but stumbled, his canine mind rejecting the idea of walking on two legs. Sebastian threw an arm around him and half walked, half carried his brother through the portal and it closed behind them, leaving the collars behind as the last remaining sliver of sun sank beyond the horizon.

***

“Margo, I swear, if you make one more ‘free to good home’ joke . . .”

The Physical Kids cottage was empty, all but for Quentin, Eliot, Margo and Sebastian. The other students had gone home for the summer, but Margo’s sources told her that Jay Tannis had left Brakebills after giving up Spencer Carmichael’s name and wouldn’t be returning. Now she smiled at Quentin as they all shared a bottle of Riesling.

“I have to admit, Q, you made one hell of a cute dog.”

“It’s not funny! El and I could have been dogs for the rest of our lives if you hadn’t found us in time!”

“And I think I have flea bites from that wretched intake facility!” Eliot scratched behind one ear. His rings, returned to him once they’d reached the cottage, flashed in the light. Margo reached out to smooth down his curls.

“Come on, we’ll go upstairs and I’ll draw you a bath.” She picked up the bottle of Reisling, kissed Quentin’s cheek, and then Sebastian’s. He blinked up at her and she smiled. It had many edges.

“Do anything that stupid again, and I’ll turn you into a goose so Eliot can make foie gras out of your liver. Got me?”

“Loud and clear,” Sebastian nodded. Margo and Eliot vanished up the cottage steps, leaving Sebastian and Quentin alone. Sebastian shifted in his chair.

“Quentin. I . . . you must know that I never meant for any of that to happen. I didn’t know Devon had gone to you and Eliot about the bet. I’m so sorry.”

Quentin smiled and pushed a hand through his hair.

“I guess I do know that. And I have to say, if you’d cast on those fish instead of me and Eliot, the spell would have worked and you would have won the bet. And that’s some pretty powerful magic. Even if you weren’t supposed to be using it . . . I’m proud of you.”

Sebastian sat up a bit.

“You are?”

“Yeah. You’ve obviously got the stuff. Just . . . listen, don’t let anyone get to you about being my brother from now on, okay?”

“How did you—” Sebastian dropped his poker face for a moment before putting it back into place. Quentin shook his head.

“I know what people say about you . . . about your adoptive dad. And about me. But it’s all bullshit, Sebastian! You have your own talent, and you’re an individual! You shouldn’t risk your magical education just because you feel like you have something to prove.”

Sebastian sighed as he got up to open another bottle of wine.

“I suppose I’m still reactive when I’m forced to remember the person I used to be. And I remember Charlie, and—” He filled a glass with a sun-yellow Moscato. “It makes me feel alone.”

“But you’re not. I’m here, and so are Margo and El . . . they like you.”

“Even after all this?”

“You wouldn’t believe how badly all of us fucked things up our first year,” Quentin smiled. “Especially me. They’ll forgive you, if they haven’t already.”

“How much do you remember?” Sebastian asked. Quentin reddened and drained his glass before holding out for his twin to fill.

“More than I care to! Being caged, the collar . . .” He lowered his voice. “. . . being named Jingles.”

Sebastian drowned his smile in Moscato but a moment later Quentin was chuckling. Sebastian sat down next to him on the big sectional sofa and raised his glass.

“To Jingles!” He declared, and Quentin touched his glass to Sebastian’s.

“To Jingles,” he agreed, and both of them sipped.

Somewhere in Queens

Their doorbell rang, and the little girl ran to open it. Her mother followed, frowning.

“Who on earth could that be?” She asked, watching as her daughter pulled the door open. The child blinked and then squealed as she knelt down to hug the tawny-furred cocker spaniel puppy tucked into a wicker basket.

“Mommy, look! Oh, look, it’s just like the one that ran away at the shelter!”

“But who . . .” The mother picked up the basket and flipped over the tag tied to one side.

It read, simply, Love, from Jingles.

Fin

#fic #Whitespire's Armory #crossovers #Those People #The Magicians #writing challenges

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