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There was a single solitary lantern lighting the cargo hold.

The golden light swayed back and forth, tossing shadows back and forth in time with the pendulous rocking of the ship.

Daenerys was alone in the sprawling hold, lying on the cold floor of the small cage she had been placed in. Iron bars that she could stick an arm through, the beginning of a shoulder, but no more. A heavy iron chamber pot was chained to one of the bars but otherwise there was nothing else in the hold. All that covered her form was a rough spun tunic, large enough it fell to mid thigh. She had taken to tracing meaningless patterns on the floor, watching with flat lilac eyes as the light swayed too and fro. Her pale hair was strewn around her, dirty and unkempt.

She had taken Ser Jorah's advice, taking the three dragon eggs and fleeing with him under the cover of darkness shortly after Khal Drogo's death. She did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak, to live forever with the widowed Dosh Khaleen.

The eggs had been ice cold, as cold as stone, no matter how many times she dipped them within a brazier, but as Jorah encouraged her they could be sold for great wealth and indeed they had been. Port Yhos had been where she had sold the eggs and she and her bear knight had departed for Qarth.

Of course fate was cruel and as temperamental as the sea and while sailing their the ship they had brought passage on was attacked by a massive corsair ship bearing the flags of the Basilisk Isle. Ser Jorah was killed trying to protect her and the only thing that had stopped Daenerys from suffering the same fate was one of the pirates recognizing the bear sigil upon Jorah's bleeding body and then the ebony dragon necklace she wore. He was smarter than the rest, simply barking 'Targaryen' at her and then she was taken down into the hold.

She was fed and so far hadn't been raped or beaten, but Daenerys knew what was waiting for her. The pirates of Basilisk Isles were vicious, nasty and brutal, as savage as the isles they inhabited. the corsairs would raid any town or port-side city, have been known to attack even as far as the Summer Isles and the Stepstones. The ancient dragonlords of Old Valyrian had sent their most vile of criminals to the Basilisk Isles and Princess Nymeria and her ten thousand ships had fled the isles during their pilgrimage due to the violence of the people there.

Daenerys knew it was likely she was to be sold to one of the countless pillow houses sprawled across Essos and all she felt was alone. Not fear, not sadness, just a deep sense of isolation and loss.

A dead husband, a dead baby, a dead brother. She had escaped the Dothraki Sea and now she was enslaved once again. How her life had spilled through her fingers like sand until there was nothing but bitterness.

The lantern was hanging from a great iron hook attached to one of the wooden supports just before the stairs leading towards one of the upper decks. She was only visited once per day- or what she thought passed for a day, as down in the belly of the ship her only light was the lantern -and it would be five pirates. She would be fed and her chamber pot emptied but otherwise they did nothing to her, ignoring her attempts to speak. She counted days with their visits so by her count it was seven days since she had been taken.

She had been so downtrodden it wasn't until the eight visit that she actually realized there was something else in the cargo hold with her. In hindsight it made sense, why would they need five heavily armed men all to tend to a caged fourteen year old girl?

A deep guttural rumble jolted her upright, hands clenching around the flagon of water and spilling some of it over herself. Immediately all five of the pirates moved away from her, one raising his heavy crossbow towards the opposite end of the hold that was shrouded in darkness.

The man loaded the crossbow several times, shooting the sharp poison-tipped bolts off into the darkness on the other side of the deck. A series of grumbling and creaking of wood and slither of chains, before everything went calm again. Daenerys finished her water.

"That's the last of the basilisk venom," one of the corsairs said in bastardized Valyrian.

"It's getting less effective," another said. "Took seven darts and it's barely unconscious. Look at it."

"It doesn't matter if the venom don't work fully, those chains have it bound enough. We're nearly through the Cinnamon Straits then we can sell that thing when we hit the next YiTish port along with the dragon girl."

"Then we can spend the next year in a whore house with the mountain of gold we made," another laughed. The five then left back up deck, their voices lessening as the door above locked shut.

Daenerys lay back down, her gaze now fixed upon the opposite side of the cargo hold that was cloaked in shadow. She had been festering in her misery for so long she had failed to notice she was not alone. Now that she paid attention she realized there was deep breathing, almost lost by the noise of the sea all around them. The lone lantern gave her scant light but now that she pressed herself against the bars and squinted she thought she could see a suggestion of a shape.

A very large shape indeed, which would explain why the hold was so massive yet so empty of any other cargo.

"Hello?" Daenerys called out, her voice raspy from disuse.

There was no response, not even a grunt. Not that she really expected one. She curled back up on the floor of her cell, her scant covering damp as she swayed back and forth with the constant rocking of the ship.

Eventually she decided to talk to the animal. She didn't know what it was besides being very large but she was lonely. There was no one else besides the guards who ignored her so she found herself rambling. Telling the distant indistinguishable form about her pitiful life.

First though, she spoke of Westeros. She spoke of Aegon and his sister-wives, with their conquest of the Seven Kingdoms. She spoke of their dragons, Vhagar with her bronze scales and Meraxes with her silver and Balerion the Black Dread with his inky black with scarlet eyes. She spoke of their herald and their people, she spoke of King's Landing. She spoke of the children of the Conqueror, King Aenys and King Maegor. She spoke of the Dance of the Dragons, she spoke of the kings who followed until it was her father Aerys. She spoke of King Robert the Usurper and his rebellion.

She spoke of her dead family, her mother and father and brothers. She spoke of her dead niece and nephew. She spoke of her dead husband and son. She spoke of House Targaryen and how her pitiful self was all that was left of it.

"Do you have no home or family left like me?" Daenerys asked into the darkness as bitter tears slid down her cheeks. "Are you all alone like I am?"

The darkness before her was silent before a click of immense chains. And Daenerys stared as the tips of immense fingers came into view, the skin dark and leathery with the nails black.

The hand was also massive; it would easily be able to hold her in its grasp like a doll. There was the clack of metal, chains heavy enough to moor warships no doubt being what bound the immense being in the hold with her. Now it made sense, why the ship was so huge yet oddly bare of other cargo.

Daenerys lay down on her side and stuck her arm through the bars of her cage, trying in vain to reach.

Whoever the other was, they understood her loneliness. Daenerys had never felt more certain about something in her life.

A great crack of splintering wood snapped Daenerys awake.

She jolted up from where she had been lying down in restless slumber, the lantern swinging wildly as light and shadows danced while the ship heaved.

A storm? Daenerys worried, looking uselessly up at the ceiling. Then she flinched as the ship lurched again, a series of sharp bangs and snaps sounding out. It almost sounded like a mast falling, splintering.

And it was quickly followed by the sound of running water.

Daenerys stiffened as she saw the water begin running down the walls from a leak in a deck above them. It quickly began to flood the cargo hold, her breath going tight and anxious as it began to cover the bottom of her cage. Across from her she heard the rasp of chains and a displeased rumble from her shadowed companion. More water was quickly pouring down from the staircase, and she heard distant panicked shouts of the crew.

Then another great crash and Daenerys was flung against her cage so hard it jarred her teeth as the ship shuddered. The lantern swayed and fell as the bolt it was fastened to fell as the wood split as the ship twisted unnaturally. The lantern was heavy iron and frosted glass, landing with a dull thud on the ground but not breaking even as the water began to rise above her ankles.

She flung herself against the bars, grasping for the dislodged hook even as her skin rippled with goosepimples from the freezing ocean water. She managed to grab the hook and quickly started to try and pry open the door to her cage even as more crashes and bangs sounded.

The cage was weak, able to easily contain a fourteen year old girl on her own but the weak door bending as she twisted the hook between the lock and bar. With a series of grunts and straining her arms, Daenerys broke the door open. No sooner did she throw open the door did another thunderous crash snap through the air and she was thrown across the ground. Salt water soaked her meager clothes, her hair, but Daenerys ignored it to instead grab the discarded lantern in her spare hand and then ran across the hold to her fellow prisoner.

Daenerys barely felt time to flinch when she realized it was a gigantic ape, like those said to dwell upon Sothoryos, that was chained to the floor and walls with links and collars thicker than her limbs. The great ape's eyes were a warm brown, too bright for her to dismiss it as a simple animal and she saw how it tried to move despite the heavy restrains. It snorted, mouth opening to show fangs and blunt teeth but Daenerys wasn't afraid. At least not of the ape.

Instead she grabbed the hook in both hands and sort to pry the sealing bolt from the shackles. The bolt was the same length as her forearm, made of dull dark iron. The cuffs were crossed over in such a way the ape had been unable to pluck the bolts free, but Daenerys she managed to wedge the hook between the bolt and cuff to try and pry it free. There were nearly ten she would have to remove, to get her fellow prisoner free.

"I'm going to get you out of here," Daenerys promised the great ape, which made a angry rumbling noise in response as it tried to move.

Water flooded the cargo hold, rapidly climbing up her shins and making her shake violently. She managed to pry the first bolt free as the water reached her knees. By the time she got the second, it was mid thigh. Third it was to her waist and Daenerys had to wade to the next cuff. Her teeth were chattering, hands nearly frozen to the hook as the lantern floated next to her. The ape huffed out a snort of air, heavy features twisting as it pulled at its restraints and making the metal groan.

The next bolt fell just as the ship ran aground and rocks tore open its belly.

She barely had time to scream as the freezing water encased her, choking her and blinding her as everything went pitch black. She lost her grip on the hook, hands scrambling uselessly at dark brown fur as she tried to stay close before the wild water hurled her away. She went tumbling like a leaf in the current, being thrown against the hull in pitch blackness. Daenerys scrambled at the wood, nails clawing as her head briefly broke the surface as she let out a shriek of panic before she was sucked back into the freezing water.

Then a great bellow filled the air which Daenerys was blind and deaf to as she struggled as she sank. Great chains finally snapped, great bolts pinging off like shrapnel and Daenerys floated in the water with everything muffled and dull and dark. Her hair was strewn around her like liquid moonlight as she drifted downwards before a huge hairy paw plunged into the water, great fingers deceptively gentle despite their size, and plucking her unconscious body from the water.

The brindle-skinned people of Sothoryos were a hardy lot. Living upon a continent labeled 'the Green Hell' demanded it. Yet even so they fear the heart of the Green Hell, in the thickest of forest where trees as tall of the Great Pyramid of Meereen grew and great lakes and twisted rivers filled with whale-sized crocodiles and swarms of carnivorous fish that were capable of stripping a man's flesh in minutes. There were walking lizards that could disembowel a grown man with a single kick of their sickle-like hindclaws and great white vampire bats. Basilisks grew twice as large as lions and insects that would taint anyone they bit with the various diseases that plagued the continent; blood boils, green fever, dancing plague, sweetrot, bronze pate, the Red Death, greyscale, brownleg, wormbone, sailor's bane, pus-eye, and yellowgum all festered in abundance in the Green Hell. There was also the the elusive lizard-men and eyeless cave dwellers, vicious enough even the brindle-skinned men were wary of clashing with them.

Centuries ago the Valyrian dragonlord Jaenara Belaerys flew her dragon across Sothoryos. Yet after three years she found no end to the landmass, instead finding more and more mountains and forests and boiling rivers, returning with the idea that the Green Hell had no end.

Even in current times cities in Sothoryos were mostly dotted across the coastline, the vicious fauna and flora of the Green Hell all to eager to consume any who made their home there. And so the majority of the cities were abandoned, Zamettar, Yeen, Gogossos and Gorosh and many others all lying in ruins across centuries past. Instead it was small trade towns that was strewn across the northern coast of the continent.

Yet as time passed it came to be know the ancient city of Yeen became inhabited. The city had been created entirely from oily black stone, the blocks so massive a dozen elephants would have to be used to move a single one. Despite the centuries passed, the aggressive jungle had not swarmed the city as it had with so many others as if the vines themselves were shunned. Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar had thought to settle upon Yeen during the flight of ten thousand ships, yet when she sent a messenger to check upon the newly moved in inhabitants they had vanished without a trace. Calling the city a place 'so evil that even the jungle will not enter', the princess took her people back to the sea and Yeen remained alone and empty.

But then word came of one chosing Yeen as their home; a creature that was pale and mysterious, but could travel through the thickest of jungle without fear. One that lives amongst the apes just as often as they lived within Yeen.

Yes, there were many feared and wondrous beasts upon Sothoryos yet the greatest of all were the great apes of the Green Hell. Huge, growing even taller than the giants beyond the Wall, supposedly so large and powerful that they can slay elephants with a single blow.

The brindled people of Sothoryos knew this truth and treated the apes carefully, hunting them when needed but also wary to their strength and intelligence. Yet as time passed sightings began of a great ape beyond even those usually seen by the inhabitants of the Green Hell. One that grew larger and larger, until it towered over all the others. An ape that stood upon its hind legs always, like a man who would rule. The King of All Apes, some would call. King Kong others would call it. The villages would leave offerings when the immense form of the ape passed, seeing it as a deity. And who could deny it, as the King Kong grew nearly half the height of the fabled great Wall of Westeros, no mortal being could be such size many would agree.

Yet for all the viciousness of Sothoryos, the people of the Green Hell grew to learn the King Kong was not as wild as the place itself. And many claimed it was due to the King of All Ape's constant companion. First only seen from a distance, a pale form sitting upon King Kong's shoulder like a delicate bird, but then eventually being gently held in hand and lifted down to meet those in the villages King Kong passed.

The 'White Ape' as the Sothoryi described her.

Wild and fierce, yet gentle and sweet. Clad in the pelts of jaguars and tigers, with a spear of glittering black dragonbone, long silver hair draw back in braids. She would swing upon vines through the jungle just as easily as the monkeys when she was not upon the shoulder of King Kong. She spoke an assortment of tongues, including that of the great apes themselves who accepted her as one of their own, and the people of Sothoryos quickly learned she was the messenger, the mother, of the great King Kong and spoke with his words and thus was to be treated with great respect.

Gifts would be given eagerly when the White Ape came to the villages with her son; expectant mothers wishing for their pregnancies to be blessed, men would beg for the White Ape's hand, hunters seeking fortune or wisdom, curious travelers and traders. The White Ape was kind but would never take more than she could carry, even if sometimes she gave gifts in return which were highly fought over. Sometimes she would bring maps and stories, of the many ancient and forbidden places she had visited with her child. Many found themselves lingering the sea ports and townships, hoping to meet the White Ape in her travels and secure the blessings of herself and her godling son.

Only once were pirates foolish enough to try and kidnap the White Ape as she visited a sea-side village. The misery and death that followed quickly felled such a thing from happening again and any who spoke of it would be beaten to death by the inhabitants. Even ships out in sea, if they were within view of Sothoryos then King Kong could pry immense boulders free of the earth and hurl them at the vessels to sink them with horrific aim. Even with the typical naturalistic brutality of the Green Hell the King of All Apes was not to be provoked, so even the most foolish learned even if it was through death.

After all, the Green Hell was not for the weak and the White Ape and King Kong were anything but.