Wang Yun turns back to you.
"Well?" Qi Ji Min looks at him expectantly.
"Whatever they're speaking," your youngest commander nods sagely, "it's not Chinese."
"You don't say?" Li Ruzhong replies dryly.
You frown for your attention has settled on a man with a coarse beard and dressed in tattered red robes. The man's gaze is affixed to you and you alone. His eyes burn with an almost feverish light. The expression on his face is hard to describe. Intense? Fervent? Devoted?
"You, red man," you pick him out from the crowd, "You've been staring at me all this time. I want to know why. Can you speak our language? Can you understand me at all?"
To your chagrin, the man answers by promptly prostrating himself before you.
"You have seen me, o'Lord! You have seen me and I have seen you! In the Heart of the Flame, I have seen your appearance! Forgive me, o'Lord for in my moment of weakness, I did not believe! The Dothraki took many adherents to be their slaves and I lost my faith! But then you came and you brought with you steel and vengeance and fire! I saw you that night you delivered us from the enemy! You spoke but a word and from the weapons of your great warriors came fire and then light! The enslavers were struck down as though visited by the wrath of the High Flame itself! For that is what you are! The Reincarnation of the Lord of Light! The God of Flame and Shadow! R'hllor Reborn! You have come back to shepherd us in our time of need! For the night is dark and full of terrors!"
You understood none of that but apparently the refugees did. They all begin to kneel before you, some hesitantly, others wondrously. Some with doubt on their faces, others with rapturous expressions.
"The Lord of Light!" the more enthusiastic ones chant.
"See, da ren?" Wang Yun says proudly, "I knew I could get them to see the light!"
You ignore him and turn to your other advisors.
"The Lord of Light?" you repeat the strange words.
"It could be a barbarian title of some kind," Li Ruzhong strokes his beard thoughtfully, "It is not unusual for barbarians to give their own titles to the generals who have bested them, our own included."
"I believe Commander Li is right," Jian Yong nods with a scholar's certainty, "There is precedence of title-giving among the barbarian tribes that predates even the Great Ming. The Xiongnu and other nomadic tribes of the region gave their own names and titles to the heroes of the Western Han, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing. Likewise, the emperors of the Northern Wei referred to themselves as Great Khan in addition to the Son of Heaven. And lest we forget, Emperor Taizong of Tang agreed for his Tujue subjects to call him the Heavenly Kaghan alongside his usual titles. This can only be an auspicious thing, da ren and we should do well to capitalize on it."
"So what? I just accept the title and that's it?"
"I see no harm in doing so for the moment. At the very least, it allows us to pacify the barbarians until we find out what the title means."
The rest of your commanders murmur their assent, so you turn back to the red-robed man whose face lights up most unhealthily at your attention.
"Behold, Adherents to the Flame! The Vessel of our Salvation! The Lord of Lights!"
"Yes," you latch on to the title because there's quite literally nothing else you can latch onto, "That's me," you pat your chest unsurely, "I'm the… Lord of Lights?"
You swear the man seems to balloon with excitement.
"He has accepted his role as our divine shepherd!" the individual hairs of his ragged beard tremble individually like strings plucked on a guqin, "The Lord of Lights will save us all! For the night is dark and full of terrors!"
"For the night is dark and full of terrors!" near nine hundred people shout at once.
"I cannot see how any of this could possibly go wrong or backfire on us in the future," says Wang Yun confidently.
