snow and stars| jon snow

vii: the storm of ilta

By the grace of all the gods, old and the new, she ascended up into the sky. The clouds, something was her steps as she walked up and onto the sky, walking over the boat and giving people quite the fright as she did so. She was floating on air, but really, she was just manipulating it. She made lightning touch down and thunder roar louder than any lion could, signaling her return. She was not running away this time.

The Dornish men rushed off of the ships and onto the new grounds that would be bloody. She slowly came down from the clouds after she watched all of them exit, and she bent down on the ground, crouched over to feel the sand of the shores. Her fingers grasped at the wet sand, this time not slipping through her fingers. This was where she lost her first battle. This was where she would win her first. She let go of the sand and grunted, flying up into the air.

Anyone wearing red and gold was a target. She struck down on everything that moved in the colors red and gold, and she saved many Dornish men by doing so. After years of being inactive, she thought that she would have been rusty with her aim, but she only missed a few times.

Andromeda watched mostly from above as the Dornish men cut through the Lannister men like butter, already feeling her win coming from below. As the last Lannister was cut down, her Martell army rejoiced. She smiled from up above, until she saw another boat coming. Hurriedly, she checked the sail. Red and gold.

"More Lannisters!" She yelled from above, but she was not heard as the men below her were celebrating. They were doing so much too early. She saw the men in the ships come close enough to draw arrows at the men on the ground, which they did. She opened her mouth to scream again, but they fired before she could say much. And just like that, half of her forces were depleted, and the Lannisters that were now loading off of the boat were stringing in their bows for more.

"Cover!" She heard one of the older Martell soldiers scream the order as they hid behind the strong fortress.

     She struck the ship with her lightning, and it caught fire on the water. It would have been a beautiful sight to watch alone, to watch the Lannister banner burn into flames, but she had men down below her, and she had a family that she could not fail. With every Lannister man she struck down, she felt more and more powerful. Closer to her goal.

    "Ah!" She grunted, feeling the power of the skies soar through her. She was losing, they were losing. It was time for her to get down and show them what Dorne had taught her. She willed her mind to keep striking the red and gold as she picked up the sword of a fallen Dornish man.

   She swung at anything that swung at her, and she was efficient. Ducking and kicking and swinging at the speed of light, she was cutting through them as fast as she could. There were more Lannisters now, and her men were tired. She took a moment to breathe and stood straight up to look at all of the blood that was spilled. People around her were still raging and stabbing and swinging, and she was just standing still. A bright light passed by her face, as quick as a flash, in the shape of an orb. But what it brought her to remember was vital.

"The one who was said to entrance Aegon the first time he tried to conquer, right? She was Queen Callisto's mother."

"Legend has it, she had a voice beautiful enough to get him to release his siege on the kingdom, and after he left, a soldier realized that his king was tricked, and he killed the queen, leaving her daughter Callisto as the heiress."

"You think my voice is that beautiful? Beautiful enough to entrance a conqueror?"

Andromeda shook her head, trying to shake the idea out of it, but she couldn't. She was losing, and she was losing men. She couldn't let Dorne down, and she would not let her ancestral home down. She would not be the first Night Queen to lose her seat in Ilta. So, she did the thing that she had not done not once since after her father died. She cleared her throat and pushed back all memories that could make her voice sound anything less than beautiful, and she sang.

Her song floated over the battlefield like a mist, entrancing everyone she wanted it to touch. It affected the Dornish men enough for them to stop fighting, but the Lannister men were walking in her direction and done with their weapons all together. She ascended into the skit before they could touch her, and she sang to them from there, her soft, strong, sweet voice captivating them all. Captivating them so much that they could not hear the warrior cry of an intense thunder roll. As she reached the climax of the song, her arms spread out, and she let the fire from the sky rain down.

The amount of lightening she set on them more or less blew up the ground, so hard that she was thrown off of the air she was standing on and caught herself of the next. The ground was on fire, and so were the men. The Dornish men took a run for it, trying to get as far away as possible from the fire that was set. She watched and listened from above for the screams to seize, and once they did, she immediately soothed the land with rain.

    She looked down below and saw no red and gold. She looked across the water and saw the ship as good as dead wood could be, and she saw the men of the Martell's victorious on the grounds, waving at her happily. She saw boys as young as Leonardo and Saros on the ground alive in the colors orange and yellow, and that's when she knew she had done the right thing. Her bare feet touched the ground, the grass between her toes now as she breathed in once. This was her grass once again. Ilta was hers. It was a Vela's again, as it always should be.

     "Andromeda!" Ramona ran to her, blood on her hands and face. "I sewed something for you. It's a little wrinkled because it was in my pants," she smiled sheepishly and pulled something out from a pocket in the back of her pants that Andromeda assumed she sewed in herself. She revealed a large and folded up dark blue material that rolled out and proudly boasted three white stars, the second star the biggest and the highest. Instantly, Andromeda covered her face as tears welled up, and all the Dornish men came to watch.

"Ramona," she cried. "Thank you, so much." She hugged the older woman tightly, a small sob coming from her as the maternal woman held it together for the both of them. "I can't believe you've done this."

"We've all done this," Ramona said. "All I did was sew your house banner. But do you see now? We've conquered Ilta!"

Andromeda looked around at everyone's faces. Tired, but proud. She smiled at every single one of them, and she started to laugh a little bit from all the excitement. "I must thank all of you for helping me gain my ancestral home back." She initiated her victory speech with that as the congregation grew closer. "You all have no idea how much Dorne has helped me do this, and the Crown of Ilta will forever be in debt to Dorne. I myself will forever be in debt to the beautiful Kingdom of Dorne. I wish you good fortune on your trip back to your home, whenever that may be. You are all welcome to stay for however lon-" She was cut off by Ramona nudging her.

"You are to keep the men that are alive, did no one tell you this?"

She smiled even brighter. "In honor of us taking back my ancestral home, there will be eight days without nights, a symbol of our victory!" She yelled, and the cheers and whoops of her pumped up but slightly depleted army sounded. "One day for each member of my family that died trying to defend this island, and the last one for me, for us." She said, and the first man, and man she didn't recognize plunged his spear into the ground, his body kneeling.

"I pledge my sword, my life, and my honor to you, Andromeda Vela Martell, as the Queen of Ilta." Ramona followed, smiling up at her but serious all the same as she said the vows Andromeda knew she meant more than no other. She watched as they all formed a circle around her and did the same, declaring her the Queen of Ilta.

"To Andromeda Vela, the Night Queen of Ilta!" Ramona declared, and the Dornish accents and voices jumbled together to say the same words in a beautiful cacophony of declarations. She stood in the center of the circle with Ramona, and she spun around to see all the faces that were now devoted to her, that were now her people. She couldn't help but to grin, and she felt like crying, but she didn't. She never really wanted to be the queen of anything, but she had promised her mother that if the time came, she would step up and take the responsibility. And it was worth it. Ilta was free again, and she was it's queen.

                                      ****