Playing the Game (Game of Thrones)

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Yara Greyjoy was many things. The first ever Lady Reaper of Pyke. The last living Greyjoy. A stalwart warrior and a strong sea captain. She was also a woman, if the aforementioned ‘Lady Reaper’ bit hadn’t clued one in. Some of these attributes were more beneficial in her experience than others. Some of them were like weights around her neck, shackles around her wrists and ankles.
 
She had had to fight and claw her way to her current position with every bit of grit and tenacity she had in her person. It wasn’t easy, by any stretch of the imagination. It also wasn’t without sacrifices along the way. Ruling the Ironborn wasn’t as simple as being the strongest, or even having the right name. Not when you were a woman. You had to constantly be proving yourself, not just to those close to you, but to each and every Ironborn man you met.
 
Yara had seen it too many times to count at this point. She wasn’t even that pretty, at least by the main continent’s standards. Aside from her title, there wasn’t a single thing about her that screamed ‘lady’. She was a warrior, through and through. Yet, did that stop men from looking at her like a piece of meat? You would think it would, but no. It felt like every single stranger she met was a toss-up, a coin flip if you will between respectful and fantasizing about what she would look like on her back with their cock buried in her fucking cunt.
 
The Lady Reaper of Pyke had long gotten used to it. She’d grown up with it after all and had been fending off attempts to see her in that position for far, FAR too long. Still, when everything had started going to shit, Yara had seen her chance. The Ironborn needed a proper leader… and who better than she, the only child of Balon Greyjoy to actually be raised on the Iron Islands?
 
It certainly wasn’t going to be Theon, raised by the Starks and turned into a soft bellied Greenlander. Not that he’d made it back to them anyways, in the end. Yara was the best option… but of course, her Uncle, Euron Greyjoy, had had something to say about that.
 
Her father had been right to banish Euron from their waters. But privately, Yara found herself wishing with the benefits of hindsight that the former Lord Reaper had simply executed his younger brother straight out. It certainly would have saved her quite the headache.
 
When Euron had returned, he’d done so with all manner of strange discoveries and frankly disturbing ideas rummaging around in that crazed head of his. He’d come with a small contingent of followers, and immediately begun siphoning off Yara’s own supposedly loyal reavers. It wasn’t long before the Ironborn were in the midst of a full-blown civil war, with only a few houses staying neutral to see where things landed.
 
It was those neutral houses that forced Yara’s hand, in the end. She’d known how things would play out from the start. If Euron won, then the neutral houses would submit to his rule, accepting him as their new Lord Reaper. But if she had won? They would have seen weakness even if there was none. They would have used whatever damage Euron did to her forces to turn on her next, and they would have finished her off, weakened as she likely would have been, even if she DID prove victorious.
 
Yara was stuck with her back against the wall. And if she didn’t want to end up on her knees, either facing down an axe or a ‘sword’, then she needed to change the game. She needed to flip the board.
 
… That was why she’d gone to the Drowned God and offered herself in earnest. When all else fails, turn to the Gods, yes? Of course, the Drowned God was an interesting deity to be sure. He didn’t ‘help’ very much. Rather, the religion of the Ironborn was very fitting as it fit into the culture of the Ironborn itself. One of personal improvement, alongside the reaving, raping, and carving of coastal towns and villages, and kingdoms alike.
 
Still, Euron Greyjoy was an affront to the Drowned God’s religion. He wasn’t just lax in his belief, but a full blown heretic and heathen from his time in different seas. The knowledge he’d brought back, the things he’d returned with, and the attitude he showed to the Drowned God and the Ironborn’s religion… all of these things gave Yara an opportunity.
 
She’d prayed to the Drowned God day and night. She’d had the priests drown her damn near a dozen times. And in the end… he had answered her prayers. He had given her what she needed, even as he’d pulled a part of her down into the depths with him at the same time.
 
Even now, she felt it. A slimy shackle upon her very soul, wrapped tightly around some ethereal part of her like the strongest tentacle of a kraken. There was nothing Yara could do about it though. She was but one mortal woman, and she existed to serve the Drowned God’s whims at this point.
 
It had worked, at least. They had defeated Euron Greyjoy in pitched naval battle. And not just the Drowned God had assisted them in sinking her uncle’s ships. No, there had been a mighty storm at the time as well, one that shot lightning bolts which ONLY struck the enemy fleet and left their own untouched.
 
No one had spoken of it, not even the Drowned God’s own priesthood. It was madness to even consider that the Storm God and the Drowned God might have worked together. Sure, Euron was a heretic of the highest order, but just how much of a threat was he for the two eternal enemies to put aside their enmity, even for just a single battle, and take him down?
 
… In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter, really. What was done was done, and it wasn’t like the truce, if there even was one, had lasted longer than a day. After the fighting was all said and done, after the battle was over and Yara was Lady Reaper of Pyke with an unassailable position as the Drowned God’s Chosen, well, the Storm God had gone right back to sometimes sinking their ships, to sometimes blowing their vessels off course.
 
The sea was no kinder to them then it had ever been either. It was a hard life that the Ironborn led, but they wouldn’t trade it for anything. The opportunity to return to the old ways and pay the iron price that came with the chaos that was happening on the main continent was just too delicious.
 
Perhaps some small part of Yara wished they could change. Perhaps some small part of her felt the shackle on her soul, placed there by her decision to turn herself over to the Drowned God, and recognized it for what it was. She was a slave. A thrall, to use Ironborn terminology. She was just as much a thrall to the Drowned God as many men and women were all across the Iron Islands. Taken in raids on both the coast of the mainland as well as merchant vessels, there were thousands of thralls that lived on the Iron Islands.
 
She hated feeling kinship with them after all this time. She hated being beholden to the Drowned God. But there was nothing she could do to change that. Nothing she could do to escape her fate. She was his now, and when she died, her soul would likely spend eternity in his clutches, receiving his… special attentions.
 
Still, it wasn’t all bad. She WAS Lady Reaper of Pyke. She WAS the undisputed ruler of the Iron Islands. Men might look, and they might imagine her on her back, but that was all they would ever do. As the Drowned God’s Chosen, she was untouchable. Saintly, even.
 
And at the same time, it wasn’t like Yara had changed anything. The Ironborn raided even now. In fact, they raided more than ever before. The state of the continent was such that there was really no one left to stop them. Oh sure, a raid here or there might not go entirely according to plan. They might be repelled or pushed away before they could get all they’d come for.
 
But there was no more fleet to oppose them on the waters. There were no enemy ships left to get in their way. For the first time in a long time, the Ironborn had naval supremacy. They were the undisputed Masters of the Sea, and with their ships, they could ravage up and down the western coast of Westeros with impunity.
 
Without a King to sit the Iron Throne, with half of the Seven Kingdoms in disarray and the other half turned inward, dealing with their own problems… it was the Ironborn’s time to shine. A Golden Age, one might call it… or perhaps an Iron Age, if you wanted to be particularly cheeky.
 
That wasn’t to say Yara didn’t know about the Targaryens, of course. She wasn’t dumb and the Ironborn weren’t completely blind to what was happening on the other side of the world. They might have mostly kept to their own seas outside of exiles like Euron, but it would be all but impossible NOT to hear about the Targaryen King and his armies making their way from Essos to Westeros.
 
Some of the rumors, like the one that said they’d fought an army of undead and White Walkers upon the Wall, were simply ludicrous. But others, like how they’d apparently reconquered the North, the Vale, and the Riverlands, before moving onto the Reach and Dorne… well, those couldn’t be ignored or denied, especially when they were collaborated by so many different sources.
 
There was also all the talk of what sort of man the Targaryen King was. A liberator, they called him. They said he ended slavery over on Essos, or at least damn near did so. They said he changed the entirety of the Dothraki, an infamous people of horse riders and slavers, and removed the very idea of slavery from their minds somehow.
 
Yara didn’t know if that rumor was any truer then the one regarding the Wall. It certainly sounded fantastical and make believe. Indeed, it sounded impossible. But for some reason, it spoke to her on a deeper, more personal level than the Wall rumor. As thought some part of her yearned for it to be true, for the Targaryen King to be deathly opposed to slavery in all of its forms.
 
A passing thought, to be sure. But either way, she expected him to make his way to the Iron Islands in some fashion sooner rather than later. Especially when the latest reports had him and his armies, as well as his massive, hulking dragons, arriving in the Westerlands. Once one of their greatest rivals for naval supremacy, the Lannister Fleet had seen better days. In fact, it was practically nonexistent at this point.
 
The Westerlands, for as much as they’d suffered along with the rest of the mainland, were as green and fertile as ever. Was it any wonder that when given the choice between reaving the Westerlands and reaving the North, Ironborn chose the Westerlands time and time again? They barely had enough knights and soldiers left to repel one in ten raids at this point.
 
Not anymore though. Not with the Targaryen’s armies taking up residence in the Westerlands. Yara had attempted to pull back her Captains, to have the Ironborn lay low for a while in the hopes that the Targaryens would continue on their way to King’s Landing. But her more rebellious and independent Captains had refused to listen to her orders, as to be expected at this point.
 
And besides, it wasn’t likely that the Targaryen would have truly turned away at the coast anyways. Not if the reports of the Westerlands rolling over and swearing fealty were also true. He couldn’t very well be seen abandoning his subjects to Ironborn predations right after they’d bent the knee, now could he?
 
Still, Yara wasn’t sure they would be able to beat back the Targaryen King and his armies. She wasn’t sure the Ironborn hadn’t gotten a little fat and lazy off of these last several months of being the only true force of power on the seas. She wasn’t sure of much of anything at all… especially seeing how a storm had been raging over the entirety of the Iron Islands for the last seven days and seven nights.
 
As Yara sits in her study, the study of her forefathers, she presses her lips together and furrows her brow, wondering when the Targaryen King would make his move.
 
It was then that she felt it… a tug on her very soul. The slimy chain, the kraken’s tentacle wrapped around her sense of self pulses with a strange feeling of panic… and then begins to pull.
 
Yara’s eyes widen, as she realizes what’s happening after one long moment of confusion. The Drowned God… he’s demanding assistance. But not the sort of assistance she knows how to give. She is but a mortal woman. No, he’s demanding she give of her very essence for whatever he’s doing. A battle, perhaps? Is that what the storm is? A battle between deities?
 
A gasp tears itself from Yara’s lips as she falls forward, barely catching herself on her hands on the desk before her. She doubles over, grimacing in pain as the Drowned God’s demands become more and more insistent. No doubt, he’s not just pulling from her, but from everyone who owes him fealty. Every Ironborn who has sworn themselves to him and meant it, or who has strong faith in him.
 
It’s not just her, but that’s not really much of a consolation prize, because it still feels like he’s asking too much. She feels like she’s drowning right there in her father’s study on dry land, feels like she’s being pulled into the deep.
 
… She could fight it, but she’s not sure that would end well for her. She could give in, but that probably wouldn’t end any better. What does she do? The world spins and Yara’s eyes roll in her head as she gasps and pants and whimpers. This wasn’t the kind of battle she knew how to fight. And yet, she had to make a decision all the same.

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