Braavos
598 SF (Eleventh Moon—Day 19) (98 AC)
Syrio I
The dragons are foe. This is a truth that must not be unforgotten even in summers stretching eons past this fleeting life.
Such were the words of the old mothers, whispered through centuries, when dragonlords hungered fierce for slaves and cruelties twisted beyond the ken of common torturers.
Yet since those shadowed days, that wisdom had faded. It was swallowed by the sands of time, as all things were.
Syrio, Sealord of Braavos and blood of ancient House Zalyne, bore it heavy in his breast, even now in days of fragile peace, when dragonlords dwindled in might and malice.
Hence no shock stirred him at tidings from that reeking pit of a city, or those far lands steeped in sorcery and warped witchery.
"This damnable winter will be our death—I foresee it already," Syrio muttered as his heels nudged his steed along the paved road toward their famed Arsenal. "What say those Reacher rats of this one?"
He rode as was his wont and right—flanked by a thick retinue of guards and swords, his First Sword chief among them. Dull title, that—First Sword? In such moments he pitied his forebears' barren wit in naming.
Much could have flowered from dubbing the finest blade of the most glorious city.
"It's a regular one, they claim," his First Sword answered. "Though prudence bids us not swallow their words whole, my Sealord—they've erred in such foretellings before."
One could scarce trust folk who spurned magic's existence, even as their overlords stank of unnatural things.
Syrio shook his head, the cold bit sharper at it. That drew a frown. Scarce a decade into his sealordship, and already his lush locks had fled. Worst of it, every cure mocked him—failure after failure. The latest: bathing his scalp in water laced with outrageous salts. Yet that only hastened the loss.
He should hurl that charlatan witch to the dungeons for her lies. And if he were cruel, he would—but he was not. So she'd sup on his charity till his last breath.
"Well, we've abundance laid by for such a blow," he said. "Though I'm vexed by our forebears' choice of this chill-haunted spot, so wedded to Westerosi seasons' bite." A lament, aye, but jesting. This ride dragged too long for silence's pall.
His sword laughed. "I'd say we escape the harshest of it. Some poor sod in the North lost his toes to it."
That revelation struck his heart ill. Their pact with the North—lucrative beyond reason—was cruel and grinding on the men who bore its fulfilment.
Syrio marvelled still at those northerners' grit, enduring that bone-deep chill of theirs. It was no wonder they were dubbed barbarians, only beastly folk could find wondrous living there.
"Speaking of the North," he murmured, eyes on the ceaseless dance of ships. "Have our labours begun to bear fruit? We've raised storehouses aplenty for that wood already."
He meant soon to sell off more of his older hulls, replace them with craft of that pale timber wedded to that queer prince's designs: swifter, vaster, sleeker, and of greater importance, safer.
Lyseo shook his head. "As I warned you, my lord—not in a lifetime could we scar that forest." The man sent a glance sidelong, toward his temple no doubt. "That prince played false with you, I fear."
Nay, dishonesty scarce named it—merely Syrio's own hungers stretching beyond grasp, foolhardy as they were. He had dreamed of binding ironwood tight, hoarding it till its worth soared; in hindsight,that was laughable. Instead they had glutted the trade, driven the price earthward, and lined Westerosi coffers.
Word reached him that even the Riverlands now proffered swift cutting in those queer wheeled house sawmills. No cutting deserved that speed and efficiency.
The Sealord had commanded replicas raised in Braavos too. They could take advantage of the salt rivers, for the coin bled to those Riverlanders showed no ebb.
And yet, as it had been the constancy with Braavosi learned men and artisans in recent years, they managed no success in that replication, or any other for that matter. They were practically bleeding more coin in those attempts than actually just going to Westeros for such services and luxuries.
But Syrio wanted to ease the cries of his own city's cutters.
He sighed, aye, that prince had skinned him neat, even if he didn't deny him the fattening of his coffers, he was taking from Braavosi people opportunities and livelihoods. What would be next? Their famed whores?
He shook his head and returned to the subject of ironwood.
"We'll hawk it to the slaving-cities at a premium," he said. "Demand will surge once these new hulls kiss the waves." If only they had the prince's sorcery to weave into the grander beasts. "We'll charge those wretches based on the numbers of slaves they own or bartered."
They could also earn back the millions they were spending to free the unfortunate chained folk—he wasn't regretting that joined venture with the fleecing prince in this lifetime.
"You reckon he'll churn them thick once his fief stands firm?"
Syrio frowned, then shook his head. "Westeros scarce touches our shipwrights' ledges. But we'll seed a hundred eyes in that boy's realm—he harbours the queerest bent for wonders."
He doubted Braavos would catch Westeros's follies—yet that prince mastered crafts and whims like a godling. Syrio still scrapped for porcelain baubles, for cunning metalworks. And two of his four wine aerators were shattered by clumsy servants. Those rarities cost a premium and a half.
If only those sluggard Myrish stirred their arses and aped the prince's glassblowers.
Syrio misliked this fawning. He'd been groveling to haughty Westerosi traders with their ridiculous prices. He sighed. Those old mothers spoke true—the dragons were foes indeed.
They eased into the Arsenal, where the prince's fleet lay cradled—massive things, these hulls, dwarfing any that had sailed even at the Freehold's zenith. Among them stood one—the prince's personal vassal—so vast one might lay three carracks beam-to-beam across its deck.
In Syrio's reckoning, sorcery wove thick through that beast. Those Asshai witches slinked in often to work their twisted rites within by word of his men.
No blood spilled nor the wails of dragged children though, thank the gods for small mercies.
"This thing's a monster, eh?" Lyseo breathed beside him. "What's he mean to do with it?"
"Just traveling, if you'll swallow that," Syrio muttered. And wasn't it pure folly? All that timber, iron, copper, gold squandered like piss in the canal, a fortune and half again to birth such a leviathan just to waste it on leisurely fancies. "Have you seen inside it?"
His sword shook his head. Syrio chuckled. "Finest manse this side of the known world." Yet that scarce touched the madness. "Come, let's board—let me unveil its deceit."
A reason lurked why this cursed hulk had risen so swift…
…it didn't wobble. Not a tremor. And pressing the prince's shipwrights yielded naught but gibberish.
——————
"These things must hold some magic apart from birthing monsters," Syrio murmured from the bed, his woman sprawled at his side, face soft with indulgence—for he still burned to claim her ripened folds with fierce hunger.
He grasped naught of those fools who chased peddled cunts, worn and seeded by a dozen deep-pursed rivals, over the well-formed warmth of their own wives—untouched by any cock save their husbands'.
A simple choice, yet peers and kin had pressed him otherwise, whispering his wife's beauty alone chained him. Nonsense—he'd glimpsed comeliness beyond reckoning in his days; discipline alone set him apart.
Mayhap that was why the Sealord's mantle fell to him, not them.
"Are you lamenting again your mad want for dragons?" Sirona asked. Her voice was idle, scarcely curious. Mayhap his musings grated sharper than usual. "You know the Targaryens would rain fire and wrath upon us."
Aye, they would—and though Braavos feared no nation, no man, those sister-fuckers were neither. That boy-prince had etched the beasts' horror in him, leading his hand to stroke those scales.
"Your menagerie could never house such, so best you marvel close with your safety assured, my Sealord," the princeling had said, all smiles and jest.
Yet touching them, Syrio had seen his city drowned in flame, every ward crumbling.
He knew—and knew not how the whelp had sniffed his desires—that it was a veiled threat. Threatened in his own halls by a boy yet to seed a cunt.
"The old Sealord was a daft fool to let these into the Iron Bank's grasp, my loveliest wife," he said while drawing the egg near. "What if the next lacks my wisdom?"
"Was it not you scheming to wed our boy to the Sea Snake's girl?" she teased with light mockery. "Your ambition swells beyond your breeches at times."
He smiled fond at the memory—that scheme, fooling the keenest minds. Save the prince—but Syrio spoke of men, not whatever twisted ilk the Targaryens bred.
He'd have waited the fossil king's death, then forged a betrothal between his son and Corlys's. From that blood would come twisted grandchildren; through them, the hatching of monsters.
Syrio could yet see it—his house exalted to royalty with Braavos bent beneath. He'd have been the warning of the mothers of old come to life.
"Dreams of youth, my fair lady," he chuckled, leaning to brush her lips. "Though now I ponder, it would have been better wedding Naiko to a daughter of that exiled princess in Lys? Does she even bear any?"
His woman nodded, shoving him back. She'd had her fill with her. "Saera has a girl, of an age with our son. Yet I'd have torn your tongue if you dared wed our sweet boy to a whore's whelp."
He grinned at her venom, as the truth in it was unmistakable. Still he wondered how she'd wrought such cruelty.
"A blade to the heart would serve as well," he said, watching her rise, violet silk robe veiling her form. A pity seeing that sensuality gone, even if time had softened its youthful tautness—he cursed his son for that toll—Syrio remained enthralled.
"You're oddly fond of me slaying you," she said, pouring wine into a glass cup. "Lyseo says you bid him die defending me in such a case."
He laughed for her words were folly. "What man shuns a passionate death?" he challenged.
"Any with wits, I'd wager." She smiled. "And Westerosi favour the battlefield."
"Barbarians!"
They laughed together, and he rejoiced his marriage held no dullness. His parents had sparked no such fire, though they drilled loyalty deep.
After that breath of mirth, his lady wife did press him on his fixation with the dragon eggs.
"I lingered in that camp of freed slaves and could not shake my fascination with those Valyrian women," Syrio said, voice low, still tangled in the memory. He'd been utterly enthralled by that folk. "Hearing their whispers—praises, truly—of the boy-prince, I began to ponder these accursed things and what to make of them."
His gaze drifted to the three eggs.
"That explains you rutting me senseless this eve," she said with amusement curling her lips. Truth be told, he and his wife shared that Valyrian captivation—when the prince had lingered here a sennight, Sirona had near ridden his cock raw, so hopelessly snared by the boy. "I'm thinking of billing that prince for what his freed folk stir in you toward my hips, husband. Mayhap a whole barrel of that wondrous, creamy brown sweet."
That would be a delight, Syrio wasn't too proud to confess. He loathed bidding against those obscenely rich merchants for such trifles—paying a thousand gold once, all because some fool clung stubborn.
Syrio despised this scramble for Westerosi leavings. He must write that Merman lord, arrange a finer deal through the prince—a direct vein for those luxuries. If only those barbaric nobles weren't so scornful of trade—he hated that distant continent.
Shaking his head, he pressed on. "What I meant is, I wish to return these to the Targaryens. They bring naught but the shadow of dragonfire."
"Will the keyholders assent?"
He arched a brow. "When have I spared thought for those fossils' prattle?" He scarce grasped the need to involve them—they never agreed on aught. Yet that discord let him rule unchallenged thus far. "I'll bargain that sorcerous stone recipe for them, and failing that, ensure its trade flows true to our shores. Our mimicries yield only mud in shades."
That stung deep, a bitter disappointment.
"Oh, perhaps we can raise more than dams with it now," his wife exclaimed, eyes alight. "I hear they've the fairest eatery in their capital, wrought of it and man-made stone." She leaned close, eager. "I crave to try those architectural styles the boy fleeced us so richly for."
Well, Syrio aimed to scour the slums with it, but a few measures could spare for Sirona's whims.
"Speaking of the freed folk," she said, "when will they quit our city?"
"About a sennight hence." His days brimmed with arranging that exodus—and the jobless tide to follow. "I mean to send more ships to the boy's shores, scrape clean whatever surplus he holds."
A knock came soft at the chamber door—one of his servants, the one he knew harboured a Faceless Man's shadow beneath his skin—and leaned close and whisper in Syrio's ear: the priests of that queer faith demanded words.
No doubt another fool's errand from the Volantene factions.
He loathed Braavos keeping puppets in that festering pit of a city—they clawed at each other's throats without cease. Surely the old dragonlords writhed in their fiery hells, aghast at the rot their sister-cities had become.
Syrio shook his head. "And they call the greatest city in the known world the Bastard Daughter of that foul empire."
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The Saint: Maelys only cares about his reputation in Westeros. And my headcanon is that Planetos has uniform seasons.
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Anyway, bye.