…
"The Dragon has 4 heads,
One to be a Murder, who will unleash death, One to be a Monarch, whose crown will weigh heavy, One to be Mad, whose ideas will change history, And One to be a Savior, whose rage will shatter Kings."- An Old Prophecy
Kaira I; 298 AC
Men are monsters.
Kaira Sands learned this lesson from her mother, and her from her mother.
Kaira Sands learned this lesson from her Father, who learned from himself.
Kaira Sands learned this lesson from watching the Men who rode horses like they were their own legs, who burned, who killed, who enslaved and raped. Those monsters were coming, and her world would soon be pain and suffering.
The Dothraki rode, brazenly, in the open, charging their small caravan. The guards, purchased by some noble Volantis slaver, ran.
Of course they would run, they were no Unsulled, no, they were common Sellswords, who valued their own lives above gold and silver.
Her mother prayed, and has been praying for the past decade and a half. Whispering those sweet nothings to a being who could not hear her.
Kaira has heard every story there was to the fictional god her mother worshiped. Her mother almost beat the prayers into her mind, hoping one day, they would be saved from tyranny. Most days she simply laid her senile mother down and fed her Milk of the Poppy while she worked with clients.
The Volantis slaver was of course, transporting slaves in his caravan, who thrashed in their cells as they watched the small horde ride upon them, terror taking the minds of the Slaves who had yet to break.
Kaira was afraid.
She was always afraid.
She had been born of fear, to a woman broken by fear, by a man who drank away his fortune because of fear.
The courtesan was afraid when noble men made demands, she was afraid when she awoke to her mother crying out to that false god again and again, she was afraid when she was alone and she was afraid now.
Fear has kept her alive.
Born to a minor, no-name noble house in Braavos, Fear made sure she learned how to keep her silver safe, how to stab a man to kill and how to hide bodies in places where none will suspect her. Born to a common wench, fear made sure she learned the tools of her trade, how to sway her hips enough to entice, how to make men ogle and how to fill them with just enough desire and longing.
Born to be no-one, Kaira Sands was often the best at what she did, because Fear made her desire survival above all else.
Plans upon plans upon plans….
Useless.
She could not outrun them, their horses were better fed, better trained, better everything.
She could not fight them, the guards had run, and the men left behind were emancipated slaves soon to be cut down or forced to work until they died under the dothrakis' watch.
She could not sneak away, they were in an open plain of sand, for as far as the eye could see…. She could not leave her mother here either.
Kaira stepped out of the back of the caravan, abandoned by the slaver and his men, who were trying to outrun the horde like the fools they were.
Today, Kaira Sands will die.
Not because she planned wrong, not because she failed…. No… Today she would die because of simple misfortune. A Khal had seen them, and decided it would be them, her, and her mother.
Simple as that.
Monsters do what Monsters do, she mused.
"May the God Killer save us" Her mother prayed, even as she also stepped out of the caravan.
Lily Sands was only thirty and nine, but the woman looked as if she was double that. More than a decade of being in brothels, a lifetime of being in the sun and sand had not been kind to the common wench the woman had been.
Wrinkled and calloused hands, deep brown skin, warted and pocked skin, eyes who could not see, but an angelic voice, even years after she no longer needed to sing, Kaira Sands did not inherit much from her mother.
Lily Sands moved with a certain… determination. An assuredness that made people question if she was truly blind, but Kaira knew why.
"May the Goddess made of Blades, Gold and Fire split the very world'
On and on the crone whispered to no one but herself, ever since the announcement of "DOTHRAKI!!!!" by the frightened men, Lily Sands had been praying.
Praying to a 'God' that no one had ever heard of, that Kaira found no evidence in any books, in any ledger, or in any tale other than the ones her mother spun in her lonesome.
Slowly, she felt a new emotion welling within her chest.
It was hot… burning…. It was new.
She had never really felt this before, but as it burned in her heart, coursing through her veins, Kaira ripped off the opulent clothing, the silks and worthless jewelry that she wore when whoring herself out to high bidders.
Bare, all but her underclothes and the knife given to her by a different version of 'Lily Sands' Ten and Five years ago, before she was broken by her terror.
That burning in her chest made her heart roar, and for a moment, she forgot her fear.
Rage. That's what the emotion was called, she thinks.
Kaira Sands had a plan, a simple enough plan, but a plan all the same.
300 gold dragons.
Ripped from dead men in the streets of Braavos when she was still only 7, she saved it. Every piece.
Earned with blood, bruises, sweat, but not tears. Never tears.
Saved by going hungry on days when she didn't meet the expected amount that the Matrons would want from someone of her skills. Swindled and ferreted from the open coffers of men who loved women more than money.
Enough money to buy her and her sick mother a small house in a new place, stocked with food, enough money to purchase freedom, and by the numbers, it would be enough for the next 70 years, and by then she would be dead.
Kaira would have been set for life, the money she gathered and hoarded would have been her beautiful ticket.
And yet, the gods, whoever they really were, spat on her plans.
It felt… like personal spite.
They barely skirted the Dothraki Sea, one that had been scouted ahead by a dozen men, meant to only be a short expedition.
Grabbing another of her 'tools' hidden with her discarded robes, she found her lockpicking kit, and began work at the cells holding her new comrades in arms. 'A woman needs many things up her sleeves' a Matron had once said to her, and She took it quite literally.
She had perhaps, a few minutes before the riders came upon them.
So cell after cell, after cell, she wordlessly freed the 'Property' that Volantis nobles bragged so much about.
Kaira watched as they began to sprint away, at least those that could, the orphan children and the healthy men, still chained by the feet, tried to run, ignoring her and simply trying to escape. 'Healthy' was a vast overstatement, they were emancipated, but they could move, and had most of their limbs, so it counted in Essos as 'Healthy'.
Her eyes fell on the older ones, the ones who knew they couldn't run away, and felt pity.
With only 30 seconds until those riders came upon them, some of the older men, bald with clipped ears, simply looked at each other and came out of the cage, still chained by where there were once dead eyes, now had a little life inside.
The women inside the cages coward and prayed to so many different gods Kaira didn't care to count, no doubt waiting for their inevitable ends.
I will not wait for my end.
That rage boiled and bubbled under her skin, it was ugly feeling she found, but fitting.
For so long, she had done everything right. She taught herself how to read, she taught herself how to dance, she taught herself how to kill, and had done everything and more that someone like her could have done.
Wrapping the knife handle and her hand with one of the worthless strips of cloth she had been wearing, she prepared for the inevitable.
The first rider came upon them…
"MAY THEY COME, AND SLAY THE TYRANTS!!!", She heard her mother scream, the prayer echoed in the howling winds. The opening sounds for which the slaughter began.
A crack rang out, as the first rider's whip snapped against the skull of the first chained man who tried to charge the Dothraki, his blood splattering the sands, and his eye dangled from the socket. The thundering of hooves on sand made it impossible to hear the screams of the crones still in their cages.
The first of the freed slaves died.
"MAY THEY COME AND KILL THE SLAVERS!!!"
Knife in hand, with nothing else she could do, for the first time in her life, Keira Sands stopped calculating, stopped thinking, and gave in to the primal beast that was within all people to survive, and should that fail, to die screaming.
"MAY THEY COME AND BUTCHER THE MONSTERS!!!"
Fighting was like dancing, Kiera found, and it was easy.
Her simple knife slid in and out of the passing horse's eye, a moment before the rider slashed down with his curved blade.
"KILLER OF DEMONS, BANE OF ANGELS, WHO WAS ONCE 7, AND IS NOW ONE!!!"
The horse bucked upwards, altering the trajectory of the sword swing as the nameless dothraki fell from his second pair of legs.
She was on the downed rider before he could reasonably react, her knife gracelessly cut through his throat. His sword ripped from his hands by fingers faster than his dying thoughts.
Unbidden, dragged from the recesses of her mind, even as monsters who looked like men charged, she remembered.
'There will come a day child, when your death will come, and in that moment, I ask only one thing from you, daughter of mine.', Her mother whispered one terrible night, as Kaira applied more powders to hide the bruises from her latest customer. The madness that had inflected her mother seemed to no longer be present in her voice, as it was now like silk, comforting to the ears.'
The sword she ripped from the Dothraki's corpse met the downward strike of the next rider, the clang of metal reverberating through her arms, and the blade fell toppling into the sand like a thrown toy.
'All I ask is that you say the Prayer, just the last verse, one time.', Kaira turned towards her mother, seated on the same bed a foreign nobleman had beaten her in, and scoffed at the old woman's audacity. 'And why should I do that?' Kaira asked.
Lily Sands' eyes opened, the milky whites bore into her very soul, as if the woman could see through the useless eyes she had been given at birth.
'You may not believe me child, but…. I hope they will arrive if you do.'
Laughter.
Drowning out the sounds of screams and death, she could hear laughter.
Haunting, and full of mirth, it echoes, filling her being, the rage, and the fear dissipating with it.
The sword cut down into her shoulder, cleaving through with force unbecoming of men. The rider ripped the blade out and away as they rode past, a clean kill by all metrics.
Kaira slumped to the ground like a shadow doll with cut strings, her blood mixing with the ever present sand. The sun gleamed down, its hateful rays directed at the world. She could hear nothing, but that cackling laugh, so foreign and wrong it sounds like death.
It wasn't her mother, who was still singing like the praises of a false god, never to be heard or granted the miracles she so desperately wanted. It wasn't her 'comrades', who had broken and tried to run, now dying as the branching horde rode them down with whip, sword, and hooves. It wasn't her enemy, who brought down their sword, her flesh parting like it was cloth instead of a part of her being.
Her lips sealed, and the laughter stopped.
It was her.
Kaira Sands had been laughing
Ah, so that's it.
Her last breath was a mutter, a sweet nothing brought out by sheer will.
Unbeknownst to Kaira, Lily sands, already in the hands of a rider, cloth being torn and being mounted by one of those Monsters, whose eyes saw nothing, was watching her daughter.
Kaira forced the Last verse of her mothers prayer from her lips.
"May… they… come… and… save…. Th....."
Lily Sands smiled, a crooked smile, full of joy, like a demon possessed.
"Th… the World"
The sun ceased, and silence followed.
…
Rigela I;
When the Sun disappeared, Rigela stopped praying.
Her old hands could barely hold the rags that her masters had given her, and even now, her hands throbbed something fierce.
Ever since she was little, when she broke her hands and her mother spent every last stag that they saved to have them fixed, they would still throb in pain. It didn't stop her from being a seamstress, and when the raiders took her and sold her, she stayed a seamstress even when her blasted hands made her want to weep.
She looked away from the ring of light that had been the sun, and her eyes fell onto the thing standing in front of the cage.
It was the strangest sight.
The horde had stopped, their shouts in their incoherent language was guttural but filled with something that she would never have guessed men like them were capable of.
Fear.
Standing over the dead girl who had opened the cages in a foolish attempt to die standing like warriors of old, was a woman.
Flowing white hair, long and lustrous like silk. Dressed in a strange cloth, colored black and something akin to a dress based on its length, extremely baggy sleeves that denoted a richness very few nobles could acclaim. She could only see the back of the stranger who had appeared with the disappearing sun, yet something deep in her bones was filled with…awe
Easily 6 feet tall, the giant woman towered over most women, and seemed… confused if anything. The woman's silhouette was lithe, but covered by that exquisite and exotic dress.
The professional seamstress within her felt as if Rigela was looking at a masterpiece of cloth-work, and the little girl who listened to fairy tales deep in her heart was looking at something like a dream. The slave who wove tales and cloth figured she was in a nightmare.
A hand, pale as snow came up and as the woman seemed to glare it, as if the appendage had offended her. The young foreign woman clenched and unclenched her fingers, inspected by eyes made of…. Madness. She caught only a bit of it, but Rigela saw eyes that glowed that saturated red, as if fueled by the sun itself. She saw only one of those terrible orbs, but... She was frozen, just like the men she had mocked, and creeping fear began to set in.
'Monster' shouted the instincts that kept her frail bones alive this entire time.
Gasps came from all the surviving freedmen, and those who cowered and still lived, not yet cut down by the equally frozen raiders.
"Well, I can't say I'm not impressed, there wasn't even a ROB to bring me here."
The words echoed in the field of silence, even the Dothraki in their idiocy knew that the thing in front of them wasn't human. Not a single horse moved, and not a single man moved a muscle.
The screaming woman from earlier whispered something picked up by almost everyone in the strange standstill.
"You finally came….", the fellow older woman whispered, disbelief and something deeper in the beautiful voice of the singer.
The beautiful and terrifying thing leaned down, pressing a single palm against the chest of the woman who had died not a minute before, cut down by a passing rider with ease.
Something wicked was happening, but the audience was forced to watch as what was surely a dead woman was knitted back together, like a dress rewoven, flesh became whole. Not a single blood stain other than the when the girl had bled into the sand, and it was… shocking. Rigela barely caught herself prostrating before the foreign monster, until she heard a gasp from the deceased girl, who in their shock of no doubt being pulled from the hands of death, shot up into a sitting position, her body language clearly confused, and maybe afraid.
The only sound from then onwards was the rustling of clothes and chains as all slaves in attendance knelt, prostrated, and splayed themselves in front of what many of them would assume to be a Demon, or hopefully just a kind Witch. A traitorous thought whispered in the back of Rigela's mind that they might be the Stranger, or the Mother, the Maiden, or possibly the Crone, but she killed those Blasphemous thoughts in their cradle.
And finally, as if only now truly taking in the sights before them, Rigela watched the demon's feet as they turned around, ignoring the dothraki at their back, and Rigela held her breath as women's feet got closer to their cages, the Dothraki man in front of the cage, about to grab at the slaves within Rigela's holding cage, was frozen like everyone else in his cohort. Said man was shaking, as the giant stepped closer, and even if she didn't look up, she could tell the woman was examining them.
"Slaves?, Really? Seems rather on the nose…", The giant woman hummed, unbothered by the silence and the surrounding bodies, as if they weren't aware of the unnatural stillness.
The Dothraki screamed in their hoarse voices a singular word that she could barely make out.
"MAEGI!!!!", They roared, finally snapping out of the revelry that they all were stuck in.
The Goddess began a chant that stretched to the heavens.
"I am the Flesh of My Blade…"
Then the massacre began.
…