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// The Quarrel 
// Story: Those Who Ride 
// by Mitch H 
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The khaleesi and her husband were quarrelling. 'Arguing' would imply that they were speaking to each other, but the khaleesi had chosen to respond to her Sun-and-Stars' ultimatum with deliberate avoidance.  

Drogo had insisted that his wife's place was with the main body of the khalasar, and that she would be 'commanding' the horde's main body in his absence.  The khal's bloodrider Haggo would be doing all of the actual leading and commanding, of course, or at least, that was what Sunset had gathered from her mistress's furious diatribe on the subject.

So, as the khal led his warriors on their strike southwards against the witches who had tried to kill her, Daenerys was expected to play the good wife and be carried off into safety along with the rest of the khalasar's goods, chattel and spare horses, the whole lot of them hurrying east into the Dothraki Sea and its plentiful fodder. Fodder which would keep the remount herds and the rest alive and mobile. 

Daenerys had other plans. Instead of allowing Drogo to shuffle her off with the rest of his dependents and possessions, she'd send her other handmaidens to take her own possessions and zafra with the main body, while she would quietly try to slip into the khal's fighting-camp and attempt to follow the lajakhalasar, the fighting bands.

Mostly, this meant that she was following Sunset. And Sunset didn't know what to make of the reversal in… dynamics? Because the little khaleesi was not really accustomed to doing for herself. Daenerys Stormborn had been the pampered possession of her family's fortunes for all of her short life, and her wedding had mostly meant that she was now the somewhat-cosseted possession of a barbarian prince, instead. This meant something much broader and wilder than what it had in Braavos or Pentos or even Dragonstone, or so Sunset gathered. But it still meant that there were a multitude of limbs raised in the new khaleesi's aid, and support, and care.

Now it was just her own two pale white hands, and Sunset's… whatever. Strong back? She wasn't an earth pony, Celestia damn it!

Sunset had been obliged to inform the khaleesi that if they were going to follow the khal's camp, they couldn't haul all of her belongings with them. No, not even those odd colored stones, those alleged dragons'-eggs that Daenerys loved so much, although Sunset's train of thought had almost been derailed by how different said stone eggs looked now that she'd tapped this world's magic.

Trains. What Sunset wouldn't have given for a train car, and the carrying capacity of - No!

So Sunset Shimmer, once-student of the Princess of the Sun and Moon, bane of monsters and conqueror of the Canterlot Archives, found herself instructing a hominid barbarian princess in the black arts of logistics, packing lightly, and roughing it in the wild. And why portable food and a bit of canvas to keep off the night air were far more important than books on the history of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms for their continued well-being.

Because Sunset would have to be carrying most of that on her own back. The khaleesi's other horse - that beautiful, stupid grey - was many things, but a pack-horse was not one of them. And neither she nor Sunset could be laced into the traces of a baggage-cart - not and still avoid the irate attentions of the khal's lajaki.  

Meanwhile those lajaki were busy themselves at the same exact task that occupied Sunset, but on a vastly greater scale.

One horse in four, dedicated to light baggage carts weighed heavy with grain, gifted from the Norvosi or those few inhabitants of Qohor the Dothraki supply-masters had been able to find and extort in the journey through the forests up to this moment. One horse in seven, packing food for the riders - hard cheeses, dried meats, trail rations - and necessaries to keep the lajaki from dying of idiot causes like a lack of basic medical attention, or of exposure if the weather turned. A spare horse for every rider, and the one that carried them in the saddle. This was the lightest, swiftest, smallest hoof-print the fighting khalasar could present to the world and still travel, without being a herd of victims awaiting the headsmare's axe.

It was still an enormous, confused crowd, an apparent mob that was more chaotic and confused than anyone other than a soldier could possibly picture unaided, without prior experience to enhance and supplant the naked imagination. It required that you had, at least once in your sorry past, observed a mass of armed sapients heave and stumble and scurry about in front of your repulsed, fascinated eyes to truly inform your understanding of just how much well-intentioned imbecility lurks hidden within an army. The school of ponykind, as Celestia had described it to her once-student, is example. 

Sunset, the great Princess had said to her, as they watched the soldierly ponies of the EUP stumble through their fall evolutions not-quite-in-the-field-yet, In war everything is simple, but even the simplest things are difficult. Friction is the bane of the soldier, and every army, however simple, orderly, or well-structured, is built of nothing but a multitude of surfaces rubbing against each other - every joint, every cart, every weapon, every soldier another failure-point in the transition from plan through execution into failure. Because every plan ends in failure, every single one. The best you can hope from your plans are fruitful failure.

To quietly move a pale white princess in leathers and a brightly-coated unicorn through herds of rough and proud lajaki would seem to be an impossible task. But for the most part the fighting khas were fixated on their own purposes, their own urgent logistical needs. For a while, the two of them avoided the khal's attention, his wrath and the inevitable forcible return to the main body that wrath would entail.

A while sufficient enough, in the end, that the khaleesi avoided said forcible return. It was no longer a simple task to shuffle her off into the distance by the time men serving one of the khal's more eminent lajaki finally noticed Daenerys lurking in their midst, somehow hiding in plain sight beside the flamboyantly-coated unicorn. The two of them found themselves surrounded by irate Dothraki, under a sort of guard, although one mildly restrained by their baffled respect for the khaleesi's somewhat confused status. What was she doing there?

Sunset thought back, while they waited for the lajaki who must have ridden off to fetch instructions from the khal. She gathered from Daenerys' rage that the substance of the quarrel between the khal and the khaleesi had been over Khal Drogo's requisition of herself from Daenerys' service. At least her temporary re-designation as 'court witch' for the duration of the campaign was an improvement over 'opinionated oddly-colored horse'. Well, camp-witch, Sunset supposed. Khals not exactly having anything so stone-house-man-like as a 'court.'

Sunset Horse, the khaleesi had raged, I will not tolerate gifts to be given and taken-back like this! It is dishonorable! It will not stand! You were given to me - on my wedding day! - and no one else, not even my beloved Sun and Stars, can make that not true!

Sunset had held her peace on the subject of who had given what - because by her estimation of Dothraki gifting culture, the khal's murder of the would-be gifter had terminated the exchange prematurely, and his tolerance of Sunset in Daenerys' possession had constituted a lending of his battle-prize to his bride. Daenerys' other nominal possessions, the weapons gifted her not long after Sunset herself, were in use even now by the khal's bloodriders. But it wasn't Sunset's place to gainsay her mistress, not when she was as wroth as she was.

It occurred to Sunset that the plan as laid out was a half-measure, a half-rebellion. Never give small offenses, Sunset, Celestia had half-quoted to her. Ponies ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of small insults, but when you drive them out entirely, you take away their capacity to do you harm in turn.

Sunset had never seen Celestia give any pony any offense, small or large. She had always simply - maneuvered her problem ponies so that their wishes did not come true. Celestia had taken that pre-classical cynic's advice and chose to never insult anypony, ever. Not even Sunset herself.

...I will not sit, isolated, unprotected and worrying among the supplies and the zafra to twiddle my thumbs and be nagged to death by my dear, dear brother and his endless complaints...

And Sunset worried that her new mistress was making a mistake, was giving her mistress's lord and husband a very sharp, small offense indeed.

...The only reason I am alive today is because you were beside me to break those death-curses! I will not be separated from my-

Sunset had been curious to see what word the khaleesi would choose to describe her handmaiden's ambiguous new status, but they had been interrupted by a sudden rush of riders tumbling by, and the 'conversation' had ended there, without conclusion. 

The khaleesi had wrapped her imposing platinum hair in a cloth, to keep from standing out in the herd, and hid the distinctive rest of her in a heavy, hot cloak. This must have been the only reason why it had taken so long for her to be noticed among the naquikhasar. Well, that and the lajaki's general tendency to not mess with members of the other bands until it came to quarreling.

And in all of the fighting-khalasar, only the khal and the khaleesi were quarreling.

Sunset didn't see when the messenger rode off to notify the khal that his wife was with the flying column, but she certainly noticed it when the khal himself and his personal khas arrived amid a wave of disorder and purposeful chaos. The riders of the mahrazh-naquikhasari who had discovered Daenerys shook loose their half-guard over their wayward khaleesi, that protective, restrictive huddle which kept her and her quadruped attendant from slipping away again. And so, when the khal arrived, his wife was still to be found.

"Moon of my light! Why do I find you here, eclipsing my purpose, when I had told you to take yourself off to the grasslands, and feed my horses and my zafra where they can be fed!"

"My Sun and my Stars, how can I reflect your light if you put me away from your glory! Did you marry a wife, or a stable-master? If you must take my handmaidens, you take me as well!"

The angry ape, high up on his enormous red stallion glared around in a mockery of confusion. "Your handmaidens! Qotho, have I a passel of maidens packed away in your saddle-bags? Have I taken with me my zafra, or your wives, to peel fruit for our smacking lips as we ride into empty-stomached war with warlocks and witches?"

The bloodrider muttered something, wary of getting pulled into his khal's domestic dispute. 

"See! I don't let my bloodriders haul their sheaths around with them. How can I set a standard, without embodying it myself? No sheath! Only arakh!"

The khaleesi gasped in astonishment. Her Dothraki was still a little shaky, but even she could tell when she was being slighted.

"Perhaps the khal's mighty arakh can stand a season exposed to the elements, if he is so proud to bear it about naked to all the world! Or perhaps you can sheath it in the next goat you find by the side of the road!"

Sunset's ears burned, and she wanted to back up, out of what was rapidly turning into an increasingly explicit and profane argument. She found herself bumping into the horse of - ack, Cohollo. 

He reached down with his coiled whip, and brushed Sunset's new braid-bell, making it tinkle as the newlyweds yelled at each other. "Hello, maegi-Sunset. You helped your mistress escape her khas? What do you have against poor Rahkaro, that you have again undercut his authority, made him look like a fool?"

"Lord Cohollo, good morning," said Sunset, evenly, as she turned to give the bloodrider her attention, without putting her back to her mistress and her mistress's irate husband. "I did nothing to insult my good friend Rahkaro, nor diminish him in the eyes of his lajaki, or the khaleesi's khas. The khaleesi merely chose to put her personal safety in the ho- the hands of her husband's full war-band, and to leave the security of the khal's household in the capable hands of her now-blooded khas."

The balding, leathery bloodrider snorted at Sunset's evasion, leaning one elbow on his saddle-pommel. "Call it whatever you please, but it won't do Rahkaro's name any good to be put aside like this after a failure like the other day."

"The might of many a lajaki's arm was no help against the ice and shadow of the sorcerers we go to face, Lord Cohollo."

"I remember many a lajaki arrow which struck that Qohorik witch, maegi-Sunset, so many that he was more fletching than man. Don't think because you have one bell to your name and a little bit of braiding, that you can fight all the world by your lonesome. Even a witch can fall to an arrowhead well-shot."

Sunset couldn't see an answer to that which wasn't rank foolishness, and kept her peace, once again. 

The khaleesi continued to argue with her husband in front of his entire following, and the two of them kept at it until their choler finally bled away, and their embarrassment at the spectacle they were presenting their people overcame their wrath.

Daenerys was a very young bride, and allowances had to be made. But Drogo? He was a man, and a full-grown one, and a leader of tens of thousands. He'd done his own name no good in letting his woman challenge him in front of the world like a common fishwife. He didn't so much give in to her demands, as he simply - refused to acknowledge her further presence.

He rode his great red stallion right past the wife which he was now ignoring, and looked down at Sunset.

"Sunset Horse. I will be needing your talents for the next while. At least until we pull this temple-stone-house down around these Qohorik witch-men's ears. Follow my khas, do what I tell you to do. Take yourself and whatever comes with you, and keep them from burdening my lajaki. Can you do that?"

Sunset nodded, silently, not trusting herself to re-open the wound. 

Khal Drogo returned the nod, wrenched his steed's head around like a teamster pulling a carriage-wheel out of a mud-bog, and kicked his heels into the stallion's sides. His two remaining blood-riders followed their steaming khal. They hurried south, joining the swarming thousands of Dothraki warriors as they spread out into the open forests of central Qohor, racing like a leather-clad tide of vengeance through glade and meadow and brush.

And the khal's wife, demoted to baggage, sat incandescent with fury as Sunset looked worriedly up at her mistress. It wasn't the first time she'd been reminded of something the late Magister Allynio had mentioned in passing as he'd groomed Sunset for her future in service to 'the Targaryen princess'. 

One must, the fat ape had said to her, keep in mind when dealing with the Targaryens that they are all quite mad. They breed themselves too closely, brother to sister, half-brother to half-sister, generation after generation, until their family trees look more like ladders. She looks like a doll, a porcelain doll - but she's a Targaryen, and her father had men burned alive for his own amusement. Step lightly while the dragon sleeps, because awakened dragons burn little ponies like you.