Arthur 32

293AC

"You know," Asha said, sipping slightly at the half-empty wine glass in her hand. I had needed to cut her back, rationing the stuff like everything else on the boat trip. "You really should get out of your cabin more. It can't be healthy to be in here all the time."

I turned to the next page in the book I was currently reading, or rather re-reading, a copy of a reasonably old Valyrian text regarding the applications and consequences of Blood-Oaths. While the magic I had used was obviously different since it lacked a sacrifice, I still felt it necessary to reeducate myself on the concepts, and since I had copies of most of the tomes on magic with me, now felt like as good a time as ever to refresh myself on the mechanics.

My newfound sister, however, was intent not to leave me alone. "Cmon, there's got to be something else to do on a boat other than reading." She pouted heavily. "I mean if you aren't the captain anyhow. Aurane seems to have his work cut out for him with all the tacking."

We had been making slow progress north for a little over two weeks now and traveled I estimated about a quarter of the way home. The winds had been remarkably constant actually, which meant that even if it was a pain in the ads we hadn't yet ended up becalmed for more than an hour. Unfortunately, I had still run out of simple children's games to entertain Asha nearly two days ago, and she was growing increasingly restless, constantly harassing me at any hour she was awake, which unfortunately was cutting into my sleep due to her tendency for all-nighters.

Furthermore, whatever had changed in my mind made it more than a little difficult to tell her to fuck off.

Well, I could tell her fine and had on several occasions, but my conscience wouldn't let me have men come up and drag her from the cabin.

I rubbed my eyes and closed my book. "Fine. Asha, what do you want to do?"

"Other than Drink, which you won't let me do any more of?" She said, lazily placing her glass down beside her. "Not much. I'd figure you'd have some ideas oh wise and powerful sorcerer."

"Please don't call me that," I said quickly. "I don't want to get burned by peasants the moment I return to Dragonstone."

"Oh, I won't. In public anyhow. It can be our little nickname." The Iron born woman came forward, leaning on my shoulders with her boney elbows. "Still, you've been a fountain of games so far. Why stop now? Your cute little noggin runs out of ideas."

I closed my eyes for a second, the realization that not even my mother had called me cute in years striking me before I shifted in my seat. "Not quite out of ideas, it's just, well, the other games I've thought of are a bit higher concept."

"Is that a fancy way of saying they have more rules? I'm not an idiot or a child you know, I can handle thinking."

I rolled my eyes but nonetheless began to search through my head for rules I could remember fairly well. "Ok, I've got one, but we'd need some dice to play it, and I don't have-" I sighed as she dropped a bag with a familiar clatter onto the table.

And here I had been hoping to distract her with whittling them out for at least a few hours. "How did you get these?"

"Won them in a bet three days back." She gave me a look. "You don't think I spend ALL of my time bothering you, do you?"

I nodded, that actually made a bit of… "what were you betting against them?"

For once, I actually saw a bit of a blush cross the Greyjoy's face. Her eyes turning to the floor for just a moment. "Nothing you need to worry about Brother. Now come, tell me how this "high concept" game is played."

Trying to remove the idea of my new sister's indecency from my head, I drew one of my notebooks out, handing a small sheet of paper to Asha, who took it with an odd look. "The game involves writing?"

"A bit." I nodded. "Let's call it… heroes, for now, it's a role-playing game."

"Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"What it says on the tin," I said, looking down at the dice, which were made of enameled bones by the look of them. Though they were all six-sided as I expected. Good thing the rules didn't matter too much. "Basically, you are going to think of a character, like a hero from myth or legend, and you are going to play the role of that character, deciding how they think or act, while I play the role of the world around them."

"That seems a little unfair, couldn't you just say a Kraken came and ate me?"

I nodded. "I could, but I wouldn't. This isn't an I win-you-lose game. Think of it more like a… like we're writing a story together. I wouldn't just have your character eaten by a Kraken for no reason. The goal is to basically play out a legend. The same way mummers sometimes create stories about people who never existed. You're creating a hero who doesn't have a real legend, but we're going to make a legend for him, or her if that's what you fancy, anyway."

Asha looked at me for a moment, before chuckling deeply, forming it into a full-blown laugh as she wiped tears away from her eyes. "Then couldn't I just play as you instead?