To Step Upon Sunrise Lands
Twenty-First Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
Rather than deliver a proclamation from half a world away you decide to see Yi Ti with your own eyes and speak directly with Tyene and Garin about the options before you, to get the measure of the emperor and his court. You do not go alone.
"You want me to visit to Yi Ti?" your mother asks startled, looking up from the script for the next mirror play, some sort of Scholarum drama to make the practice and study of magic and those who practice it seem less strange and frightful. She gives a small laugh. "I suppose it's not any further than Tyrosh or King's Landing by sorcery, but an official visit requires more than..."
"Not to worry, I'm not planning to make myself known yet, just learn more of what goes on in Yin than can be whispered into a brazier or lain down upon parchment," you interject before she can lay out the
many reasons why you should not move in haste when dealing with the oldest and most populous realm in the world. "It feels strange to be engaged in talks with a sovereign whose realm I have never seen."
"Yet the world muddled along somehow in the time between now and the Awakening," she shakes her head and for a moment smiles the way she used to do when you were a child and had done something precocious, before she summons a servant to announce that neither of you would be present for dinner.
"Do you have any idea where Dany has gotten off to?"
After interrogating fiends, living and dead, about the doings of the Lord of the Ninth, you think but do not say. Grim as the report may be you do not wish to dwell upon it tonight.
"Out to see a play and then around the town with Ysilla Royce and those Frey girls," she ends the conversation on a note of faint disapproval. "Likely as not they will come back with gifts worth half as much as the stipend Walder Frey gave them."
"Lord Frey did not give them any sort of stipend mother," you point out amused.
"And that means they are not taking advantage, does it?" she grumbles as she dons a simple dark green cloak over the discrete grey dress adorned with just enough silver thread as to not look dowdy on royalty.
"They are children, of course they enjoy gifts," you shrug. The treasury is hardly going to run dry over it.
"They are Freys," she sighs, as though that is all that needs saying.
"Which likely makes them adaptable in ways other children of high standing are not," you point out.
"Fair point," she nods. "I suppose I'm just glad to have only such trifling things to worry about for now." The concern in her eyes is as deep as ever, but there is understanding there too for the reasons why you and Dany must take the risks you do, the risks she too had begun to take in turn.
***
Yin is a city built layer upon layer on ancient foundations, like fine enamel upon precious wood, its streets wide and well lit even well into the evening hours by scores of lanterns draped under sky-blue roofs.
Did the city adopt the color in honor of the dynasty, or was it named for being from the Azure city, you wonder. Something else to ask Garin and Tyene once you meet with them.
As it happens they do not know the answer to that particular question, but once you have met and embraced and congratulated them all in person on a job
very well done they answer a great many other questions. About the manner of the people and the ordering of power lowing down from the emperor to the lowliest functionary and the simplest village headman, the subtle differences in what it means to be highborn, the nuances of speech and dress that would take a whole tome's worth to express, the ability to observe passersby at the teashouse window, and much more.
Regarding the matter that had first driven you to visit you decide to err on the side of honesty, explaining the desire for normal diplomatic relations as well as explaining the nature of the Golden Company and their present patron, and even accounting for the agents Nuri found, though with a request that they be left in peace for a short while at least.
"I'm going to have to mind-speak that part," Tyene muses. "If I say it aloud, even in a public audience, I give it better than even odds that
someone will try to deal with the spies before time to gain prestige and favor before the throne."
"That sounds remarkably stifling," your mother notes. "Couldn't you converse at the hunt or some other less rigid event?"
"There is no such time," Waymar shakes his head. "To be honest I'm not sure how he hasn't gone mad from all the protocol."
"Habit I would guess," you shrug. "Perhaps the skulls of devils summoned from his court will make his days more bearable. And exchange of lore would not go amiss if it could be arranged."
"Likely not on a first meeting," Garin replies. "The court and the emperor both will need time to get our measure before any gifts can be exchanged, the Son of Heaven, of course, not engaging in anything as lowly as
trade," he laughs.
What do you do next?
[] Look for some of the elusive mages of Yin, if anyone can find them without being seen in turn it is you
[] Speak with some of the contacts Tyene and Garin made
[] Do a minor action
-[] Write in
OOC: As I started writing this it looked like another boring summary, but then I remembered that there is no reason I can't just have Viserys talk to Tyene, Garin, and Waymar face to face for some more organic writing. The Rhaella part practically wrote itself when I decided to include her.
