Tony couldn't help but grimace in disgust as he felt for the gold dragon hidden beneath his clothes. He knew he was in a medieval world, devoid of any modern comfort or public hygiene policy. But Myr had been clean, even by his modern standards.
The most pestilential fumes came from the artisan quarters and the markets. Even there, it smelled like roses compared to King's Landing. To say he was disappointed was the understatement of the century. For the greatest kingdom in the known world, they were truly incompetent.
And don't even bring up the civil war excuse. The city smelled of shit, piss, and a mixture of filth, each more foul-smelling than the last; it was structural uncleanliness at this point. The sea air didn't help matters. No wonder some slaving bumpkins from across the Narrow Sea were always calling them barbarians.
"For fuck's sake," he swore, much to the amusement of passersby, immediately followed by a retch as he tried to free his foot from a viscous sludge.
*********************************
King's Landing was not a flat city; it was a chaos of buildings clinging to the sides of three great hills, named in honor of Aegon and his sister-wives. The highest, Aegon's High Hill, was crowned by the crushing mass of the Red Keep, the fortress of royal power that dominated the horizon. Facing it, Visenya's Hill offered the sky the dome and crystal towers of the Great Sept of Baelor, the seat of the Faith. Farther on, Rhaenys's Hill bore the blackened and gaping carcass of the Dragonpit, a scar of past glory. From these three summits, the city tumbled down in a tangle of streets and alleys towards the banks of the Blackwater Rush. The district of Flea Bottom occupied the most miserable valley between the hills, a natural basin where gravity inevitably drew the wastewater, the refuse, and the lost souls of the capital. To climb in King's Landing meant to rise socially and breathe cleaner air; to descend was to literally sink into the slums.
**********************
Having gotten an overview of the capital's geography, Tony decided to get a higher vantage point. Following the stream of pilgrims and merchants, he began the ascent of Visenya's Hill. The air barely improved, but the view opened up. Soon, a blindingly white structure imposed itself on his sight: the Great Sept of Baelor. It was a mountain of marble, glass, and gold, its seven crystal towers sparkling in the sun. The edifice was magnificent, immaculate, almost divine for this place. And at its feet, the city continued to rot in its own filth.
*"A fortune in marble for the gods, and mud for their faithful,"* he thought with a cynicism that never left him. Even if he had never really cared about social justice in his first life, in this one, he simply couldn't remain indifferent.
*"I've been on both sides of the spectrum,"* he thought bitterly.
From where he stood, he could see the other, higher hill, Aegon's High Hill. And on its summit, the Red Keep. The red sandstone fortress was the complete opposite of the Sept: massive, threatening, bristling with towers and ramparts. It wasn't an invitation to prayer, but a declaration of raw power, a stone monster that dominated the city with its sheer mass. In an instant, Tony understood the power structure of King's Landing: faith on one side, force on the other, and between them, an ocean of misery teeming just to survive.
He descended back towards the livelier quarters, where the sound of hammers and the cries of vendors created a ceaseless cacophony. This was the city's beating heart, the world of artisans and merchants. It was here, he told himself, that a resourceful boy could find his place. The hope was short-lived. A blacksmith shooed him away with a wave of his hand, calling him a runt. At a bakery, the owner explained that his nephews already filled all the apprentice positions. A tanner did offer him a job: emptying vats of urine and scraping hides, for no other pay than a corner to sleep in and leftover scraps. He'd rather go back to Essos than do a job like that.
The pattern repeated everywhere. With no family to recommend him, no guild to support him, without a coin to advance for a proper apprenticeship, he was just another mouth to feed. A dead weight for a city barely recovering from being sacked.
Evening began to fall, and the day's fatigue weighed on his shoulders. He found himself at a crossroads. On one side, a street led to inns whose signs promised a warm bed and a decent meal. He felt his gold dragon and the few copper coins. He could pay. For a week, maybe two, no more. And he was certain that the minute he pulled out his gold dragon, he would either be swindled or, in the worst-case scenario, killed.
That's why he had left as soon as the ship had docked. The nasty looks some of the sailors had shot him over that single coin had put him in a state of constant paranoia.
On the other side, a dark, muddy slope descended towards the slums, a tangle of hovels from which rose a dull murmur and an even more tenacious stench. Flea Bottom. The failure of his search had just transformed what seemed to be the worst place in the city into the only logical option. He couldn't waste his only gold dragon on temporary comfort. This coin wasn't for survival; it was starting capital. To invest it, he had to go where the rules no longer existed, where ingenuity was worth more than a family name.
Especially since Oberyn's harsh words had stung his pride and stuck in his throat.
"This dragon is the price of your freedom. Disappear. Find a hole to crawl into. If you are as smart as you let on, you'll become a man of worth. If you ever achieve that, send me a message by whatever means you find suitable. Only then will I take you back into my service. Until that day, you are nothing. You are dead to me."
With newfound determination, he turned his back on the light of the inns and began his descent into the darkness.
***********************************
The descent into Flea Bottom was like diving into a teeming sewer. The cobblestones soon disappeared, replaced by a sticky mud that clung to his soles, a mixture of trampled earth, excrement, and butcher's waste. The air, already heavy from the Blackwater, became an olfactory assault: rancid sweat, greasy smoke from miserable fires, and that underlying stench of rot, as if the hills themselves were spitting out their despair. The alleys twisted into a suffocating labyrinth, flanked by crumbling hovels and canvases stretched over rotten frames, where families huddled together like beasts. Hollow-eyed kids, smeared with soot, bumped into him as they ran, holding out an empty hand or clutching a knife in the shadows. A woman with a face ravaged by pox grabbed his cloak, stammering offers of flesh for a copper; he shoved her away, his heart pounding.
Night fell like a shroud, turning the chaos into a ballet of shadows. Tony slipped into a dark dead-end, between two leaning walls that seemed ready to collapse. He buried himself in a pile of stinking rags, against a cold brazier whose lukewarm embers offered a feeble lie against the biting chill. Curled up, he listened: the raw laughter of whores, the groans of a brutal nearby coupling, the distant clatter of a guard who dared not venture this deep. His mind wandered, between memories of Essos and the rage he felt at this abyss. Here, in the belly of King's Landing, he was just one more rat, but a starving one. Tomorrow, he would claw out a place for himself, or die trying. The drone of Flea Bottom lulled him—a hymn for the damned, where the strong devour the weak.