Those Who Ride

by Mitch H

The Wedding

The great heaving mass of naked apes surrounded Sunset Shimmer, shouting, singing, dancing, fighting. The smell of the bipeds made her head swim, the constant press of predators in every direction made her heart beat a brutal tattoo, an inner drumming to match the pounding of the great drums. Those drums that the savages beat somewhere beyond the silk screens, silk screens behind which her owner had hidden the terrified unicorn.

Magister Allynio had bought her from those who had bought her from her captors; bought her broken, tamed, coached a bit in the bipeds' guttural language. For all of this strange tribe's apelike stature and resemblance to the diamond dogs of her homeland, Sunset had discovered that their language parsed more like Old Griffish. She had found the ape-people's tongue no more difficult to learn than any other she had encountered in her short life. It had been her quickness as much as her magic that had drawn the Princess'… well, never mind that.

The drumming was now interrupted by some clashing and screaming outside Sunset's little open-skied closet, her refuge in the midst of the vast heaving horde. Somepony – no, someone was fighting out there.

These ape-people were horrifically, unpredictably violent. The brutes who had captured her in her sleep, the slavers those lucky fools had sold her to, the slaves and the servants of the Magister's household – they all quarreled like dogs fighting over a bit of bread thrown from the table, like pigs in the slop. Sunset had learned to be quick with her hooves, and her teeth, and her tail, because the clever apes had somehow figured out how to short out her horn with their damn headdress-harness. She'd tried in moments of inattention and in the dark of night to remove the damned dampening rig they'd approximated, but some clever artisan had built a solid lock into the harness, had crafted its straps so that her head was firmly bound inside of the leather padding. Eventually, her coat adjusted itself to the constant presence of the harness, and although she formed a few sores here and there, it wasn't anything she couldn't survive.

She'd survived worse in the days before Celestia, she'd survive this.

Another series of clashes rang out like bells outside her closet, an almost-charming little concerto in steel and – were those actual bells? Sounded tiny, like brass maybe.

And then there was a splattering noise, and artery-red spots appeared like magic across the surface of her silken cell. The second duel was over, someone had lost. She could hear the groaning of an ape dying just outside the flap of her screen.

The singing and the drumming continued as the sun rose high over Sunset's head, and she sat there on the grass, trying to make out the shouting and the low conversations around her little half-tent. Whoever these new apes were, they didn't speak the local language, they didn't speak Valyrian, these Dothraki. She listened intently as she waited. It was a language nothing at all like Valyrian. Magister Allynio had had no Dothraki in his employ or his slave-quarters, so she had had no opportunity to learn anything of their barbaric tongue.

Well, as far as Sunset was concerned, all these apes were equally savage, but her Pentoshi owner had insisted that the Dothraki were barbarians even by his brutal standards. Not that the Magister had put the matter in those terms; by his standards, he was a man of culture and high standing among his peers. He had said more in front of Sunset than she thought he really ought to have volunteered.

After all, she was to be given to those savages, their ruler and his new bride. Why put such information in the hooves – no, the hands of ruthless outsiders?

The Magister had burbled about his plans to undercut his rival, the illustrious Illyrio. Magister Allynio had no connections with the Dothraki hordes, no sales contacts. His business, Sunset gathered, was mostly in trade with the neighboring counties of the Free City, and to a lesser extent the supply of the fishing fleets, and the occasional crumb stolen off of the plates of the grand magisters who controlled the trade with the Sunset Kingdoms.

Sunset had laughed like a hyena when she'd learned the meaning of that word. Until her overseer had whipped her for her insolence. That was a lesson Sunset had found hard to learn, her innate contempt for those less clever than she; and she'd met so very few people in her life that were her equal in that regard.

She admitted to herself, in the dead of night as she tried to figure out how to pick her harness's locks with bits and pieces of trash she'd picked up over the day before, in between wincing at the day's bruises and pains, that perhaps her habit of open contempt for others was not the most wise of stratagems in a prisoner. Or a slave.

Finally the drums died down, and she saw the shadow of the Magister darken the side of her screen. His flat, beige face appeared through the flaps, and he smiled, happily, as he entered her little enclosure.

"Well, now, my little pony, are you ready to give the performance of a lifetime? This is it, they're lining up with the other bride's-gifts. Come on over here, let me get you rigged up proper." The Magister reached out and began fiddling around with her harness, attaching a set of reins to her symbol and expression of imprisonment. With his own, soft hands – tender appendages which had not done any hard work in years, if not decades.

Sunset thought briefly of reaching out with her still-strong teeth, and taking a bite out of those soft hands, but let it pass. He was about to give her away, and frankly, she was tired of his stink.

She couldn't stand the brutish spices and perfumes with which these apes drenched their stench away. They couldn't be bothered to bathe, but enormously expensive perfumes? That the Magister and his peers could afford.

The fat ape led his captive unicorn out of the silk screen-enclosure within which he had hidden her. Sunset tried not to react to the sudden assault on her senses this abandonment of her little sanctuary brought her. All the tumult, all the vast stench, was suddenly joined to a kaleidoscope of tall figures, of leather clothing, of flashing gold and bronze and brass bangles flitting about all around her. Likewise, the long black braids with which this particular breed of ape decorated their scalps, little brass bells woven into their manes like the fillies of the Princess's court had done with flowers and sprigs of sweetgrass. The savages, the Dothraki, did not look quite like the Pentoshi under their barbaric finery. More of a copper color, slightly different around the eyes, almost uniformly black-maned, far taller and more heavily built than the inhabitants of the Free City.

Not that any of these apes were especially distinctive by pony standards. All subtle shades of beige or bronze, as far as Sunset could see.

The tall savages ceased their chatter as the Magister led his charge out into the crowd. Sunset could feel the black eyes of a hundred, a thousand tall apes upon her hide. She did her best to keep her harnessed head high, as proud as a student of the Princess could possibly be.

The smell of roast meat was overwhelming. She didn't recognize that particular aroma, it wasn't pig or chicken or the beefsteaks she'd seen the Pentoshi eat here in this terrible, terrible world. The savages were greasy, and many were chewing on chunks of roasted meat, even as they stared at her, stared at her horn. Apparently they found her something worth staring at.

The Magister led his gift through the crowd, and up above the crowd onto a rammed-earth ramp. Above the heads of the endless crowd sat a number of personages. Armed men, a scattering of handmaidens, someone dressed like one of Celestia's useless Royal Guard. Above these, a skinny pale ape with long, stringy white hair, his purple eyes bugging out. The Magister's hated rival, Illyrio, whom Sunset had once been shown through a seraglio screen. An impossibly tall and wide brute, the same coloring as the endless horde of Dothraki – that must be their king. He looked like a minotaur!

And, beside the minotaur-like brute, sat a pale filly – no a girl, with the same coloring as the angry little man in black and red, but where his long white hair was stringy, the girl's was lustrous and gorgeous. Where his pale-purple eyes bulged, her eyes gleamed with delight. She looked like a doll, a beautiful, impossible porcelain doll.

The Magister led Sunset Shimmer up to the little princess – and that must be who this little miracle must be, because no one else in this world could possibly compete with her slight frame and beauty – and the Magister stopped, and bowed extravagantly.

"Your Highness, I heard stories of your beauty, your purity, and your noble lineage, and I could only weep to hear of your nuptials. To assuage my heartbreak, I found for you the perfect symbol of my regret, and your future among the horse-tribes, the vast sweet-grassed plains. This, I present to you, a vision, an omen, and an auspice of your bright future. This, the Sunset Unicorn, was found in the grasslands to the south of Pentos. She is a prophecy of the return of the Targaryens to your Sunset Kingdoms, to Westeros."

"How," asked the Magister's rival, that immensely fat ape, Illyrio, "Do you know this is a 'Sunset' unicorn, Allynio? And why in the name of the Lord of Light did you think giving a little painted pony to a Dothraki bride would be welcomed?"

"Faugh! Am I a fool? The Dothraki prize nothing so much as horses, and here we have, a prodigy of horseflesh! One that speaks, and comprehends, and reasons, Illyrio! This is no mere pony, this is a marvel of the age. Say something to the Magister, Sunset!" He tugged at her reins, and Sunset stumbled a bit.

"My Lord Illyrio," began Sunset, and coughed, her voice cracking from recent disuse. "Your Majesty, Khal Drogo, greetings to you, my masters. I am placed in your hooves, er, hands, so that you might put me in the service of your new bride, Your Majesty. Think of me, please, as a hoofmaiden to Your Highness Daenerys, soon to be Khaleesi Daenerys, or so I am told."

Sunset ended this hortation with a slight bow in the direction of the delighted girl to her right, as deep as she could with her reins still held in the fat hand of her Magister, Allyrio.

This was the only reason Sunset's horn was not bisected by the terrible curved sword that cut the air over her bowed head. She hadn't seen the Khal move, but somehow while Sunset's eyes had been on the tiny little feet of her new mistress, the great barbarian-king had disappeared from his seat, and was now half-kneeling on the other side of her Magister, and there was – blood everywhere.

And then the Magister's head bounced off of her flank, soaking her left side in the arterial spray of that object's gory passage.

Sunset fell to her stomach, her muzzle pressed into the rammed earth of the ramp, her hooves crossed over her still-intact horn. She quivered in terror, waiting for the great sword to return, and finish the job it had begun.

But nothing happened, except a slight shadowing of the westering sun's rays over her closed eyes. She opened them, and peered up at the bulk casting that shadow. Illyrio.

He looked down at the butchered remnants of his rival, and sighed, sadly.

"Yes, Allyrio, you were a fool, and worse than a fool. Only the groom at a Dothraki wedding would dare give the bride a horse. We even had a beauty of a filly picked out for the princess, one that matched her colors almost exactly. I can't think of a greater insult to the Khal than to have done this."

The enormous Magister turned away from his idiot of a rival, and looked at the cowering unicorn. "He said you were a thinking beast. Is this true, or are you nothing but a parrot? Say something unexpected."

"OhCelestiapleaseIthoughtIknewwhatIwasdoingwhatamIdoingonthisbenightedtartarusIjustwanttogohome-"

"Well, that wasn't what I expected, but it doesn't sound rehearsed. Can you repeat it in Valyrian?"

"I-I don't want to die, your lordship. I had no idea – I meant no insult to His Majesty –"

"Don't call him that, Khal Drogo isn't an emperor, he's a Khal. That's the proper address. Do you know any Dothraki?"

"None, my lord. My Lord Magister had no Dothraki to instruct me, but I am a very quick study, um – " Sunset grabbed for the clearest bit of the new language she had heard earlier in the day – "jan ave sekke vervan enni m'orvikun, I think it's something about violence and – straps maybe?"

"Close, actually. Hrm. Hold that thought. I might salvage this mess yet."

The fat ape went over to talk to the irate king ape, who was bellowing about something or another. Presumably on the subject of his offended honor and the gall of the dead man's effrontery. If that was what he was actually saying, Sunset suddenly realized that she had to pay absolute attention, and she bent her head to the side, her ears cupping to catch every last syllable the barbarian lord bellowed.

Then another, smaller shadow replaced that of the absent, surviving magister, and Sunset looked up to find a pair of beautiful violet eyes gazing down at her.

"Hello, there. I can see that you're scared, but I think it's over. You aren't the one that offended him, I think. And we can't show them fear, can we? Not when we'll be alone with all of these very big men with very sharp arakhs. I definitely can't be afraid – the blood of the dragon does not fear. But you – can you be brave for me? I think I will need someone to be brave with, if this is my future."

In this sea of copper-hided Dothraki giants, and sly, skittish beige-skinned Pentoshi, Sunset stared up at the little silver-haired Princess, with eyes almost pony-sized and a shade of violet almost exactly like- no. The little biped echo of the Princess looked down at the decapitated body of the late magister, and Daenerys Stormborn sighed at the blood and gore.

"I am told that a Dothraki wedding is a dull affair if any less than three men die in its course. I think this makes today a success. Come on, get up – what did you say your name was again?"

"Sunset Shimmer, Your Highness."

"It is very nice to meet you, Sunset Shimmer. Now, then. We should probably see about getting that harness off of you, it looks like it's galling."

Author's Note:

So a user named dragon whisper 243 PM'd me last September asking for a story about Sunset Shimmer and the baby dragons from Game of Thrones. I told them at the time that I was busy working on other things and didn't really do requests as such, but the idea ticked over and turned into this beginning of a story. It's by no means what dragon whisper 243 was asking for, but you put in your bit, and the slot-machine chugs away, and sometimes it hits 'three dragon eggs', and sometimes it hits 'unicorn filly goes through the Mirror and gets enslaved and sold to the Dothraki'.

So, yeah. Dothraki Sunset. I guess it's a thing?

Thanks for editing and pre-reading help to Oliver, Shrink Laureate and the general Company.

And for anyone who wants to read along and make fun of my nonexistent linguistic chops, here's the Dothraki conlang wiki.

Comments

[knigsonic]

Well... Ill say this. Im not a fan of Game of Thrones one bit, but this still held my attention. It looks like itll be a good read!

[Naturefang]

The only thing I know about the series you doing a crossover of mlp with is that I prefer the book series title over the show title, A Song of Ice and Fire just sounds nicer than Game of Thrones

[Mitch H]

8944616
I don't disagree. The TV series took the title of the first book, and I don't know if that was because they didn't think it would get a second season, or what the thought process was. The book series title is evocative, and a little less 'an x of y' than the individual book titles. Why exactly the fourth book was A Feast For Crows is never exactly clear.

On the other hand, there isn't much in the way of music and songs in the series, aside from a satirical thing about a bear and a maiden fair, and "The Rains of Castamere".

[ponygrad]

I dig it. We've all wondered how that scheming gossipy girl from high school would fare on planetos

[borgvicugna]

8949863
My version of your avatar.
http://fav.me/d7vawxt
Putin Sparcktakuss, my arse.

[Follower of Chaos]

Well I doubt that it was a staggeringly fortunate accident that Sunset's captors had a magic-locking harness (though it's incredibly convenient) so that's going to need to be explained later. Especially since at this point in A song of Ice and Fire, magic was at its weakest, until it got a significant buff when Danaerys hatched Drogon, Rhaegal and Viseryon. Seems a little strange they'd be prepared for a magic using unicorn at this point is all Im' saying.

Another issue is that unicorns, even unicorn fillies like Sweetie Belle, have shown some pretty superhuman physical abilities. Sweetie Belle dragged Rarity and her massive load of luggage behind her for hours without much trouble. Adult unicorns like Twilight and Rarity have carried boulders and taken crazy impacts without much damage (such as smoke breath strong enough to shatter rock). So the idea that Sunset could be held by human made materials (Valryian steel maybe but otherwise), or that a human could hurt her with a whip enough to be a deterrent for one of the biggest egos in Equestria, is a little hard to swallow. Cutting her with swords is fine though I can only be so picky.

I also don't think Danaerys was quite this bold at this point in the story, she was pretty terrified and subdued all the way through the wedding for a chunk of their journey until she started actually falling for Drogo. Maybe seeing a kindred spirit emboldened her but Sunset is still a slave so I don't think the Dothraki are going to take too well to her taking the harness off. Though, since Sunset with her magic will be the undisputed most powerful being present, there might not be much they can do about it.

It's an interesting idea for a story and an OKAY first chapter, if a little contrived.
I'm interested to see how it progresses.

[FridayPie]

8944696
There was a cartoon Song of Ice and Fire, unrelated to George Martin, Probably they didn't want confusion or title was registered.

[Yami Vizzini]

Pony!Sunset having to prove to the horselords of Essos that she’s one who rides?... Of the MLP crossovers we’re inundated with, this is the most excited one’s gotten me in a long while.