End of Games

Chapter 15

Missandei's Quarters
Missandei:

Another morning, another dream. I dream a memory once again, a peaceful one of my family singing together back in Naath. Waking up, I remember that Mossador had a very beautiful voice. I don't know when I fell asleep, but my body tells me that this is around the time I usually wake up in the morning and I have to urinate, now. I gather the courage to go outside and find Weapon and Vengeance still guarding my quarters and other Unsullied patrolling.

I explain that I have to urinate and they escort me to a chamber pot where I do more than urinate. I ask to bathe on our way back and they grant my request, although without warming the water and I bathe out in the open, but it's better than nothing and the Unsullied aren't men. I'm pleasantly surprised when I return to my quarters and find a plate of food and a cup of water. The food doesn't have much of a taste, but food is food.

I just wish I could ask if Weapon and or Vengeance have an update of Astapor takeover, but I don't have to ask. As soon as I'm done, I'm escorted out of the dark barracks by ten Unsullied and they take me to Good Master Grazdan's pyramid, which is the biggest in the city. I'm taken straight to the throne room that has been turned into a war room, where my eyes find Mossador without his helmet among many Unsullied, to my relief.

"What's the first thing you would do if you just took over a city, sealed it and removed everyone who govern it?" Boyd asks from… there, in the middle of the room, sitting in the middle of a long dining table with documents upon documents on it and maps of Astapor and its surroundings in front of him, looking at me.

I take a moment to think about my answer as I'm escorted in front of him by Weapon and Vengeance, and then answer, "I would establish peace and order."

"And then?"

I think for a moment and recall the books and journals I've read that have anything with conquering a city or any place, "And then I would ensure that there's enough food and clean water to last however long I intent to seal the city."

Boyd takes out documents from under the map and appears to be cross-referencing them, and says, looking at some other documents, "That's the same thing the Good Masters said. They already had food and clean water stored away in case of a siege, and their pyramids each have enough food and water stored to feed small villages for weeks. We're good on the food and water part, but our surrounding towns and villages depend on the city."

He stands up and walks over to look at other documents that some of the Unsullied are organizing as they're brought to them, and shakes his head.

"I don't know why I rushed into all this," he confesses to no one in particular. "Taking over the Barracks was one thing, but a city… Reality is starting to set in. Grey-I-we were trained to fight and follow orders, not for this. I need to know something, Missandei. (He stops looking at the documents and maps to look at me with a serious expression.) Can I trust you?"

"You can trust This O…"

"You're not a thing or a slave anymore!" he interrupts me. "You're a person and you're free. I'm not your master, you're your own person. If you prefer addressing yourself as This One, fine, but if you don't, change it. Where I'm from, you can choose whichever pronouns you want to use. Choose yours."

I wonder where he comes from exactly. Boyd and Alpha aren't Summer Island names.

I straighten my spine and try again, "You can trust me. You have my complete loyalty."

"Great!" Boyd seems pleased. "Are you interested in becoming my official advisor? I know we haven't talked about your payment yet, but you'll get double the amount."

Of course, I'm interested. I would be more valuable to him as his advisor, and I would be closer to Mossador.

"I'm interested," I tell him, and try not to show him just how much, and push my luck. "But only if you triple it. Being an advisor is…"

"I get it," he stops me from explaining, to my relief. "You want triple, you got triple. Can I call you my advisor now?"

"You can, Alpha."

He sighs heavily with a frown, sitting down, and says with an emphasis on 'one,' "I need at least one person to call me by my name, or I'm gonna go crazy. I would even take being addressed by my first name. Please be that one person."

"Consider me that one person," I'm happy to be that one person, although I wonder why Mossador and the others aren't. "Boyd"

What's his first name?

"Thank you!" He seems and sounds relieved, but then looks at his fellow Unsullied in the room. "Um, but they're very protective of my name, so maybe don't say it when there are other people other than them."

Noted.

"Back to business," Boyd straightens and gets serious. "I think it would be better if you sit. (I do, and it is better.) Weapon, please go get Missandei's things from Kraznys' former pyramid, everything with her scent on it, and take them to her bedroom here. Vengeance, please ensure that she has a bedroom here, one of the top level ones with a nice view of the city."

One of the top level ones with a nice view of the city? I like the sound of that.

"I have general ideas about how we can get this city up and running within a week," Boyd reveals, surprising me. "Hopefully. But they're just that, general ideas. Curing the cancer that is slavery in Astapor took out a lot of its vital parts, but you know this city and its people better than me, so I need your help shaping these general ideas to create new vital parts that aren't infected."

Boyd said that he was trained to fight and take orders, not this, but everything that comes out of his mouth says that he was meant for this. I find myself lost in his ideas and plans for Astapor and her people, and her surrounding towns and villages. Perhaps I also find myself lost in the sound of his voice and the light in his eyes. The problem is that I don't think Astapor, and even her sister slaver cities Yunkai and Meereen, is ready for his vision.

Astapor is like me, it doesn't know how to be free and govern itself. It has been a slaver city for thousands of years, slavery is the only thing it knows. If left to govern itself, it will return to being a slaver city in no time. If Boyd wants to show Astapor a better future, he must lead it to it and be prepared to protect and defend it from the Graces, Yunkai and Meereen because they're going to feel threatened and may even form an alliance to try to return Astapor to its slaver city status.

Then there's the Dothraki who bring many slaves to the city, already trained because trained slaves are more valuable than untrained ones. I don't know how they're going to react to Astapor not buying the thousands of slaves they bring to Astapor slave markets from long distances. But the Dothraki respect the Unsullied, and force. Perhaps finding out that the Unsullied freed themselves from slavery by force and without casualties can deter them from attacking.

We take a break some time in the afternoon after hours in the war room and Boyd leaves the pyramid after we eat while I go to my new bedroom.
~
Astapor
Boyd:

Now that I look and feel like myself and I'm not high on whatever I was high on last night, I realize just what I got myself into. But it's too late. I leave the pyramid with my helmet on and only Mossador and First Kanima as my guards so that we don't draw too much attention, but Chameleon is with us, though invisible. I walk around Astapor to see what I'm fighting for and all I see are tense people everywhere due to the intense presence and visibility of the Unsullied everywhere and stories of what happened last night.

They don't know what is happening, but they have theories. I randomly think about how much I miss music. And my phone. And the ice rink. And electricity. Oh, electricity. There are several were-bioelectric shape-shifters among the super-Unsullied, but they're not televisions, or stoves or microwave ovens or light bulbs, although they could be the latter three, now that I think about it. They're walking potential waiting to be tapped into, but that's for another time.

Seeing as the free people who have never been enslaved are all tense, I decide to go to the Temple of the Graces where those who were enslaved and punished for one thing or another at the Plaza of Punishment were taken to be given medical care because there are no hospitals or clinics around here and the enslaved are often killed when they're sick or injured. The Unsullied outside the Temple appear to straighten up further when they see me approaching. I give them a nod.

The Temple looks even bigger inside, it's huge, and well ventilated like the pyramids. There are banners of the Ghiscari harpy with the cloths having seven different colors on the walls and…

"Three new ones just arrived," I hear someone say quietly, a woman, and focus my superhuman hearing on her. "One of them is wearing a different uniform."

"We'll present the gifts when I receive an audience with their new master or masters," another, younger one, says in response. "Welcoming the slaves into our Temple for the Blue Graces to take care of is enough show of good faith to at least grant me an audience, especially after what happened last night. Go find out what they want."

The Graces Missandei told me about. They come in different specialties, seven of them, with their leader being the Green Grace, attended to by Pink Graces. The healers are Blue Graces, the sex workers are Red Graces… I've never heard of a religion that promotes sex work, let alone have priestesses that offer it. The Red Graces interest me the most, but Missandei was too uncomfortable talking about them and sex, and so was I. I had an erection the whole time with thoughts that were anything but innocent.

She's a beautiful girl, very beautiful, eleven over ten beautiful, and sexy, so very sexy. I may have seen her naked and bathing through Weapon's eyes when I wanted to know if she was awake, not that I'm ever going to tell her. She beats every porn star I've watched and she doesn't even try. And she's smart, very smart. I found myself just sitting back and admiring her smarts, beauty and voice while she helped me shape my ideas.

I'm pretty sure I have a crush on her, but Grey's training helps me keep it under control and hidden. I don't know what she's been through, but I'm not going to add to it. As for the Red Graces, I wouldn't mind being shown their 'grace,' but I'm here to see the formerly enslaved, so I let my nose lead me to the Blue Graces' wing of the Temple. More Graces notice us on the way, and I hear whoever was sent to find out what we want hurrying to catch up to us, but I ignore them.

'They need a shower,' is my first thought when we reach the Blue Graces' wing, my thoughts referring to the formerly enslaved.

"May I help you?" A Blue Grace asks me with a soft caring voice as she approaches, wearing blue robes and a translucent blue veil that covers her face except the eyes.

"Yes, you may," I reply, but I continue to look at the formerly enslaved. "Do you have sh-baths here? I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but they need to bathe to limit the risk of infection and wounds festering, and to make your jobs easier. Or do you want them to get septic and die?"

Her heart races at the last part, and I know that was the plan. It looks like what Missandei said is true, the Temple of the Graces may be a threat to the end of slavery in Astapor.

"O-of course not," she denies the truth, and looks surprised by the way I address myself. "We…"

"I'm not here for excuses, Blue Grace," I interrupt, uninterested.

"Then why are you here?" A Pink Grace asks carefully, arriving just in time after following us here.

"They (I point in the direction of the formerly enslaved with my long spear.) are a test for the Temple of the Graces," I reply, but they weren't originally a test, I'm just making them a test now. "I think you know what happens to Unsullied that fail their tests."

Judging by the fear that enters the Graces that hear my reply, they know exactly what I'm implying.

"I'm glad that you understand what's at stake. Lead us to your Green Grace."

I hear quiet movement within the walls and focus my hearing on it as the Pink Grace leads the way, although she takes her time, delaying us so that whoever is in the walls can alert the Green Grace. Smart. The pyramids have hidden passageways too, the city walls as well, some of which lead into tunnels that exit outside the city in various places and distances. I hear the person in the walls exit them around the area I heard the Pink Grace and the person I assume is the Green Grace talking when we arrived and tell her about what happened in the Blue Graces' wing.

The assumed Green Grace acknowledges what is said before the person, a young girl, goes back into the hidden passages. The Pink Grace leads us to an in-house garden where she asks us to wait at the door so she can inform the Green Grace and announce us. She addresses the assumed Green Grace as 'Your Benevolence" and informs her of what happened in the Blue Graces' wing as if she wasn't told already.

The confirmed Green Grace's voice sounds young, even though Missandei told me that she's very old and wise. I guess the old one was killed last night and this is the new one.

"You may enter," the Pink Grace tells us after the Green Grace grants us entry, and introduces. "This is Her Benevolence Green Grace of Astapor."

"The new Green Grace," the Green Grace adds while she attends to plans, flowers, her voice smooth and soft and her back to us while several Pink Graces stand watch. "Your masters had the old one killed last night."

"I'm happy to inform you that the Unsullied don't have masters anymore," I inform her. "We killed them all last night and reclaimed our freedom and claimed Astapor for ourselves."

She stills, but her heart races. She's afraid.

"Change is usually hard for old people," I add in her silence.

"Then it's a good thing I'm young," she says, voice controlled, and slowly turns to finally look at us, at me.

She looks around my age, maybe a little older, and she's beautiful.

I like her eyes, but not enough to let her off that easy, "It doesn't seem so. I had people sent here to be taken care off and your healers were going to let them die."

She seems to note I said that I sent people here and looks at Mossador and First Kanima, calculating.

"Change usually doesn't happen overnight," she points out diplomatically. "But now that the Unsullied are free like the legion of old and I know that Astapor is yours, we will adjust accordingly. Pink Grace, bring the lockstep legion of old come again their gifts."

One of the Pink Graces exits the gardens.

"If I may ask," the Green Graces says. "With whom am I speaking with?"

Nice way of asking if I'm the new leader of the Unsullied and Astapor.

"You're speaking with the leader of the Unsullied and the new ruler of Astapor," I introduce myself, purposefully putting the Unsullied first, and look at Mossador and First Kanima. "Call me Alpha."

"Alpha," she tastes the word.

"Please, don't refer to us as the lockstep legion of Old Ghis come again ever again," I know why she thinks it's a compliment, but I don't see it as one. "We're Unsullied, and we're unlike anything this world has ever seen."

"I heard," she replies, looking me in the eye, a hint. "My apologies… Alpha."

"Pray that you don't have to see, Green Grace," I really hope she and her fellow Graces don't have to see because people need them. "Your skills and that of your fellow Graces are vital to the city, but weeds have to be rooted out with extreme prejudice."

This is a threat, everyone knows it.

"A gardening reference," she forces a smile. "The old Green Grace would have liked that."

She misses her.

"How close were you to her?" I ask, to her surprise.

"Very close. She was my mentor."

I remember Derek and Cora. Derek for obvious reasons and Cora because she taught Erica and me several things about werewolves while we were kidnapped and locked in the vault.

"Mossador, please ensure that the Green Grace's body is returned to the Temple if it hasn't been permanently taken care off," I instruct, to the Graces' surprise, and Mossador goes to do just that. "It's a gesture of good faith, but it may be too late."

"I welcome and appreciate it on behalf of all the Graces nonetheless," the Green Grace responds with grace, just as eight Pink Graces enter the garden carrying four chests that they place between us. "These gifts are our gesture of good faith."

When First Kanima opens them, I see tokars, salt and spices, gold and silver and bottles of alcohol among other things, but most of all, I don't see enslaved people.

"I welcome and appreciate it on behalf of all the Unsullied," I follow her lead. "But I must ask, can I trust you to keep the peace and not incite rebellion or associate with our enemies?"

"Who are our enemies?"

Ah, nice. She's smart.

"All slavers. And the harpys of the slaver cities because they represents slavery."

The Green Grace doesn't like that, "The harpy is a symbol of our religion."

"I'm going to ask you a question, you don't have to answer it. What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about the harpy? Your religion, or Old Ghis?" I give her a moment. "Be honest with yourself and your religion. If your answer is your religion, keep the harpy on the symbol of your religion. But if the answer is Old Ghis, remove the harpy from the true symbol of your religion.

"Thank you for your time, Green Grace. I wish you could show me around the garden, it's beautiful and smells great, but I have other places to visit. The Temple of the Graces is only my first stop. Have a good day."

With this, I help First Kanima close the chests before we pick up two each like they're nothing and turn to leave.

"I understand why you're the leader of the Unsullied and the new ruler of Astapor, Alpha," the Green Grace stops us when we reach the exit. "You can trust me and the Temple of the Graces to keep the peace and not incite rebellion."

"That's good to hear, Green Grace," it honestly is, because it sounds like she means it, but I'm still going to get Chameleon to keep an eye on her and map out the hidden passageways of the Temple of the Graces.

"Visit again for a walk in the garden!"