59 The Long Journey Home

Late 283 Spring 

I became a local celebrity during our sixty day stay giving Lyanna Stark and Jon 'Snow' enough time to recover from the birthing trauma. I hadn't cut my hair or beard since before the confrontation with Jon Connington, and my long and thick beard gave me the appearance of a wise man of the mountains. The three villages within a comfortable distance to the tower happily traded with me and my sons. To kill the boredom I brought some much needed economic mobility to these isolated villages, and thus left them moderately better off than when I found them. 

Once it was safe enough to travel, I was given the unfortunate task of hauling the deposed king of Westeros to the North on a route separate from the others under the excuse that I needed time to grieve my dead lover away from the scene of the crime. The truth, with Lyanna alive and obviously given birth, the Starks could not afford to be seen traveling with a baby. I departed in the night before the woman could learn of the decision, and I will gladly fob all the blame for it onto my cold hearted overlord. 

I needed to skin change into the lad to keep him quiet during his kidnapping, and in general so as to not need to listen to his cries. My connection to the newborn king meant he received exacting care from me, no guesswork needed. I remember that first winter with Ulfric, Galmar, and Kodlak. How I survived parenting without my powers is a mystery, and the touch of my mind might just make this lad smart enough to have more to say that 'SheZ mUh Queen!'

A sad truth of Westeros is that you are never far from a girl with a dead baby, and so I acquired for the newborn king a pair of wetnurses for our travels, and between them they weighed my horses down less than the liquor I consumed since leaving Kingslanding. As my new king can attest, you only have an alcohol problem if it gets you killed by a pig. As for the girls, I made a deal with their fathers to take them as my concubines. While married, I only lay with my wife or my salt wives, but it's not adultery if done with Dornish women. That's one of life's great truths. How that might extend to Lys or the Summer Islands, I can't say. But I've got a good feeling about those locals. 

Ned and the boys would take his sister back north along our original route, along with my plate armor and Longclaw, meanwhile, I'd ride south with my team in my Stoney Dornishman disguise, having rewrapped Dawn after blueing the pale steel of its pommel and crossguard, and painting its sheath. The sword looked unrecognizable unless I needed to draw it, and if I do I can always set it on fire to keep any survivors from identifying it. 

As for my own features, good luck identifying me on anything other than my size and eyes under my many layers of light colored desert wear and wide turban that also kept the dust out of my nose and mouth. I kept Jon Snow strapped to me in a shaded wicker basket padded with linen when he wasn't attached to the tits of my new concubines. 

I needed to slip into Greensight often to avoid any of the infamous bandit tribes that wandered these mountain passes. The Red Mountains serve as a breeding ground for Dorne's roughest and toughest, but even after we cleared them we still needed to cross the mean desert between us and Hellholt. If I didn't pack enough water, or we got lost, we would die amidst the shifting dunes. The only reliable water in the region besides our destination straddling the Brimstone River is the well at Sandstone held by the Qorgyles. We traveled at night, and slept during the day inside my tent, suffering the heat, even the little dragon brat. Too much Stark in him. 

We'd still named him Jon. Apparently ol' Rhaegar had a madman's confidence that the boy would be the Visenya he needed for when his son Aegon rose up as the prince that was promised. At least the elf-fop died before the lies he built his life on washed away. He really went out on top if you think about it. 

Hellholt was a hell of a place. Some of the sand around it fused into glass centuries under dragonfire after the dragon Meraxes took a lucky siege-bolt to the eye. It would have bounced off a dragon that old anywhere else other than if it went down the thing's throat. Three in a million shot. That event wasn't even the first time Hellholt burned, as it got its name when the founding Lord Uller invited his rivals to his hall and lit the place on fire.

What a scamp. 

Despite burning just like Harrenhal, Hellholt didn't serve as a reminder of a great blaze, but instead looked like a modern and powerful fortress with high curtain walls and great domed towers. The Ullers didn't even need to defend the place. The last time an army actually made it this far coming down from the Princess Pass the Ullers fled, and this was despite the Reachmen losing so many of their men and horses crossing the shifting sands. The Ullers fled and let the sulfuric waters their land sits atop do the work for them. The Reachmen treated the water they took from the Brimstone river, but not the fish and the high sulfur content gave them all the shits. Their host died trying to make it to Vaith, and the Dornishmen never even fought them. 

Though their river smells of rotten eggs, the people of Hellhot do brisk trade on it, and my carried gold bought me a sloop for the next long leg of our journey. I needed to solo sail all the way home. 

The things I do for my country.

Late 283 Spring Ulfric

Oh how the wolf bitch howled when the hungry bear left in the night with her cub. For some reason Ned believed it easier to ask forgiveness than permission in this matter, and Ulfric's father maliciously complied as a form of petty vengeance against the barely coping Lord of Winterfell. Lyanna Stark made it abundantly clear that this was not a matter in which forgiveness came easier than permission, and Ulfric found himself envying his father's trip across the scorching dunes of Dorne. 

It was almost something straight out for folklore, a modern retelling of Dunk and Egg. A young prince crossing the kingdoms with his huge protector, this time accompanied by the man's two new concubines. As if his father needed a new form of relationship with women, and this one nearly an insult to his new wife, if not for their Dornishness. Ulfric had yet to figure out why it isn't adultery with Dornish women, but it made some sense. The Dornish are a very different people, who live by different rules.

There is speculation that the women of Lys and the Summer Islands play by similar rules. Galmar and his crew - of growing fame known as the Boneheads - have sworn to discover the truth of these situations no matter the cost. Ulfric suspected his father and his crew - the already famous Elites - would bring the veil down on this mystery first, but it's good for a second son to have a dream other than usurping his brother. 

The trip back up to Kingslanding was even less pleasant than the trip down. The threat of random encounters with Ironborn has nothing on being in Ned's personal circle of friends during Lyanna's well earned bitch fit. Ulfric found himself wondering how the fuck anyone thought it was a good idea to fight over this woman. Rhaegar should have gotten a thank you letter for taking her down to the middle of nowhere. Maybe that is just the bitterness talking. 

It only takes a single thrown salted dick to ruin a man's opinion of a woman. 

Ulfric welcomed the excuse of overseeing his father's forces on the return to King's Landing, as it removed him from the drama now centered in the Red Keep. The heir of Bear Island was happy receiving the watered down version and stayed well out of the way, preferring to amuse himself shooting low stakes dice games and drinking away his evenings amongst the men while dodging the pox. His trips to Sunspear and Plankytown really ruined him for the King's Landing whores. They all looked so… filthy, and not in the fun way. The men knew better than to sleep with the whores here too, lest Jorah find out and make them wash their privates with lye. A fate worse than death, that. And the man would know, no one doubts that.

As for the movers and the shaker, the big show down right now is the final eliminator on the new Queen of Westeros. Many believe that Lyanna's 'failed' pregnancy with Rhaegar nullifies her betrothal to Robert Baratheon, and somehow despite the blows his father inflicted on their reputation, the Lannisters managed to drum up a lot of support for Cersei Lannister as Robert's bride. 

Lyanna was good looking for a Northern girl before the baby. Those good looks took a beating since, and Ulfric wondered what the hell was keeping the Starks in the Capital at this point. Cersei wasn't just good looking, no she lapped that on the race track a long way back. The golden haired princess of the Westerlands gave Ashara Dayne a challenge for most beautiful woman in Westeros, and to Ulfric's eyes she took the crown. And she came from money, so much money that her family regulates their spending not to avoid losing their wealth, but to avoid devaluing gold as a currency. 

When the Lannisters suddenly left the capital in a fuss, taking their men with them, Ulfric was shooting dice with his crew, the Stormcloaks. He managed to get a view of the river of red cloaks marching down to the Lion's Gate, and wondered what in the seven hells was wrong with Robert Baratheon. 

The city prepared for a Royal Wedding while the Royal Fleet set off to besiege Dragonstone with its new Master of Ships, Stannis Baratheon. The depressing city took on a new life during two months of preparations, though Ulfric and the boys had little to do besides enjoy the King's charity and occasionally work as peacekeepers on the mean streets. Fairly mundane and monotonous activities until Ulfric and Galmar were invited to the Red Keep for Kodlak's induction to the Kingsguard. 

Ulfric found this suspicious, but Galmar gratefully accepted the honor of being the new step father to Kodlak's son back on Bear Island, and promised that his wife would now know the touch of a real man. It wasn't till after Kodlak donned the white cloak that Ulfric realized what drove this. He caught a single darkly passionate gaze shared between his now sworn celibate brother and his soon to be queen, and the oldest brother knew that the wolf bitch was sowing the seeds of the next war for the Iron Throne. 

Late 283 Spring

I smiled as my sloop cut across the coast. My plans across the continent continued on their course, and beneath the waves the pod of dolphins I bound to my will pulled my ship faster than the wind could take us. I wish it was boredom that drove this decision, but it was necessity. Even with the Ironborn mostly driven back to their rocks by the Redwynes, every fishing village fallen on hard times went pirate during the chaos caused by the successful invasion of the Reach. 

I needed the extra speed to keep my concubines and little king safe, so I pushed my psyker power into the sea, a domain I have little infiltration into. I kept my power pressing out into the waters until we finally found a pod of dolphins that playfully came up to our sloop. I quickly took up my fell axe and enslaved their near human intelligence minds, then harnessed them to my sloop and turned it into a sea chariot!

The dolphin's nearly doubled my speed in the water, and more than doubled it if the wind wanted to play foul with me, and as such I had the speed to dodge the pirates and Ironborn still reaving the coast of the Sunset Sea. More importantly, the sonar senses of the dolphins opened up a new world to my magic, the world beneath the waves. Their clicks carried my will under the sea for hundreds of miles, and that is a shit show to bring up another time. In the present I brought my pod their meals, and the choicest fish leapt up into my boat. I made a mint trading my way up the coast. When your psyker powers fill your hull with premium and lead you to the best prices, it's basically free real estate. 

It felt good, being a simple demi-god about his business, but soon enough the waters turned cold, and my fattened pod brought me to a familiar Far Harbor. My Dornish concubines shivered under their newly bought fur coats, though the babe never looked more comfortable. Though familiar, my hometown changed since I left. A second earth and wood rampart wrapped around my town, pushing up against the stony hills, and in that new ring an expanded town of longhouses followed my building codes. 

This was the first fruit of the baby boom that occurred soon after I took over Bear Island. The people saw me emerge onto the scene that spring with three sons born in two years, and took it as an omen and a challenge. Something greatly exacerbated by the founding of Far Harbor and the taking of the Wildling Salt Wives. We'd added just over four and a half thousand new adults to the population since I left over a year and a half ago. 

Each year produced more children with the rapid addition of new females to the population and my legally enforced birthing regulations and sanitation laws. These young people were already leaving home, taking up a trade, and getting married to begin the cycle anew. Prosperity encouraged family growth, and I provided nothing but prosperity since taking over as Lord of Bear Island. 

These young folk had the audacity to try and charge me docking fees in my own port. 

"I care not what your delusions are, man." the young harbormaster growled, "You dock in Far Harbor, you pay the Hungry Bear's fees." 

"Ah, Timon?" his child partner pulled on his sleeve, "Maybe you should let this one go." 

"No one is above Lord Jorah's laws, Simon." the young man declared, "You need to learn that if you are to continue working the port with me."

Finally the boy's increasingly frantic urging caused the young man to turn around and see the horde of dire hounds coming out of the town and staring at him. 

"Ahhhh…" the young man sounded as his eyes widened. "This is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen." 

I put my bear paw of a hand on his shoulder - this time literally a giant snow bear paw rather than a joke about how huge and hairy my hands are - and pulled him around to look up at my flaming green eyes.

"This is my harbor, boy." I told him and spotted Maege running down the street pulling the chain leash of a struggling dire hound. 

"For fuck's sake, Jorah! Cut the magic show already!" she cried as her favorite bitch almost pulled her over. 

My hand shrunk back down and I let the young man go.

"Gather the men." I commanded him, "We've pirates to hunt, a wedding to attend, and a Queen in need of Thralling." 

"How m-m-many, my lord?" he stuttered.

I grinned down on him and gave him a pat on the back as I passed, "All of them." 

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Its funny how benign Jorah becomes when he isn't driven by his need to avert the apocalypse. He basically was on a ninety day vacation and spent it peacefully improving the lives of everyone he came into contact with. Despite that respite, its back to the business of ruling the world. 

Once again, a big thanks to 4REEESEARCH for his continued support of me and my family. You too can support us at 

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