Stories in Silver Spun
Sixth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
Rumors of Westeros:
A Dragon Beneath Crimson Boughs (White Harbor/The North): It had long been told that Viserys Targaryen, unlike any of his ancestors, honored the Old Gods before the New, that he performed bloody rites before their roots such as have not been seen since before the coming of the Andals, yet the news of a new Great Sept in his capital was seen by many as returning to what was expected, wooing the Faith as almost every king since Aegon has done. That was not so. An impossibly tall pillar of white and crimson now rises above a Weirwood forest, raised it is said in a single day. For scores of leagues around the Isle of Sorcerers, farther on a clear day, sailors can see the enormous tree like a spear thrust into the heavens. Few now doubt that the Dragon King is indeed favored by the Old Gods, and rumors that the Children of the Forest themselves swing through the pale branches are greeted with thoughtful looks and not the derision they might once have faced. What this heralds none can know for the Old Gods are as silent as ever.
Traitor's Tourney (Crownlands): King Robert is a man almost as famed for his love of tourneys as he is for that of wine and women, making the tale of the Grand Festival of Sorcerer's Deep all the more impressive to tell and interesting to hear—winged snakes and walking trees, dragons that speak like men and that can carve through castle-forged steel like a cat's claws through silk. There are darker tales of course—wizards from half-a-hundred places gathering to take Westeros and force their heathen gods on honest folk, though with the vast eastern lands the Dragon is said to have handed out to sorcerer and knight alike, many are quietly hopeful that all the sorcerers will stay in Essos and they can just keep the old lords that got the boot in the Rebellion.
Black Wings Rising (Riverlands): Tales of Dragons in the Stepstones grow ever more common by the day—small dragons, big dragons, dragons that talk like men, and ones with three heads. Many highborn and low begin to wonder of the wisdom of holding faith with Robert Baratheon. The scouring of the Riverlands may have passed into legend, but it's a legend whose marks can still be seen as clearly as the melted towers of Harrenhal, and all the while tales grow of the Dragon's men amid the Vales and Forests.
Rumors of Essos:
Wizard's Way (Braavos): For years now the Dragon has been guarding the seaways of the Stepstones, the wealth coveted by east and west alike, but it seems that was too small a prize for his ambition for he has opened with some magic key another path to impossible riches. Hundreds of thousands from across Essos watched the great mirrors to cheer on the fights, to be amazed by sorcerer's arts, to see great warriors and strange beasts, but in the Secret City it was the sight of the strange woman who introduced herself as 'Djinn' that captured the imagination of high and lowborn alike. Here in the flesh was one who passed from beyond those doors—fair and mysterious she was, but not so much as to be fearful. Scores of bravos sail south in search of passage beyond the borders of the world, much to their fathers' chagrin, but it was the merchants and craftsmen who are looking to follow that are the most extraordinary. The odd heckler who calls it 'stealing good Braavosi hands' is given a short shrift, for the docks are working feverishly and the gold is flowing in alongside promises of more once Pentos falls and its treasury is left bare, its slaves freed.
Serpentfolk of the Summer Seas (Myr): The sight of the Serpentfolk reflected in the mage-glass has led to many of the Lord Venturers to reassess the notions of trading expeditions to the Green Hell. Treasures like the pale one wore do not grow in trees, nor are they as easily plucked as fruit. With the slave trade dead there is even less cause to draw steel where soft words will do. Of course if there is to be more than talk then the traders will have to ask the Dragon where to sail to. It's probably safer than sailing blind around the coast of Sothoryos.
Small Treasures (Pentos): Small steel figures wrought in the Deep have already begun to be traded at a premium among magisters and wealthy guildsmen even as wooded copies are passed under the table to slaves and freemen alike. For the magisters it is just another trinket of which they will likely tire with soon enough, but for the slaves and freemen of the city it is something far more precious—hope, a solid touchstone to cling to in the face of all the rumors swirling around the city, about the war all are expecting and the Dragon's place in it.
OOC: Yes that bit at the end is Garin and Tyene's doing, part of an effort to make the freemen and slaves understand that this is not just 'another Braavosi war' that will leave them with nothing but under another name.