5 Two Years, Exercise and Talking To A She-Wolf

Letting out a breath, I saw the cloudy vapor rise into the air like smoke from a factory. I took in a breath, and I felt the icy air cool my boiling insides.

This was done on repeat. Sometimes I saw the white breath coming out of my mouth, others I didn't see it at all as I was too busy concentrating on image training I was doing in my head. A year ago, I'd discovered that I can test my current strength against people from the memories I get from my Ackerman side.

It'd be safe to say I still haven't beaten any of those warriors - they're the best of their generation, after all - but it was a very beneficial learning opportunity. Every fight I came away just a little better and doing such a thing every day for a year was more than enough to have improved massively.

Once again, the image training came to an end and I felt my nerves a buzz with activity, the illusion that I was just in a fight being passed onto my nervous system and my heart that was beating like that of a Thoroughbred Horse's*.

(*A/N - A Thoroughbred is a Horse used in horse racing. Their hearts are incredibly strong and can beat at 240 bpm without any adverse effects. On the other hand, most humans would feel like their hearts are about to explode when it beats at anywhere over 200 bpm. Though this varies from person to person and young people can usually easily get their heartbeat over 200 bpm.)

Deciding to strike while the iron was hot, I brought my fists up and began to go through a sort of martial art I'd learned from the memories. It was like Muay Thai but it also had throws and submissions in it, so I guess it was a martial art all on it's own.

Either way, I began going through the motions. Punches, elbow strikes, knee strikes, kicks--I went through them, using specific katas aimed at working and improving the muscles needed to maximize striking power. The sweat that had collected on my body during my image training was flung off and into the air as I began to pick up speed, the fluidity between my strikes increasing as time went by. My movements got more and more graceful as I added high kicks, roundhouse kicks and some acrobatic movements to my little performance.

My body heat must've skyrocketed as well because small amounts of steam began to float off of my body. I guess Ackerman's are a little more Titan-like than I first thought.

Yet I didn't pay much attention to it as I continued with my unarmed training.

After this, I had bodyweight training, sword training and then a little bit of weight training. It's been two years since I got to Winterfell and became a page for the Starks and this had become my routine for the morning since I'd got here.

Why do I train my unarmed combat? Because who knows when I won't have a sword or another type of weapon at my disposal. I'd rather not become one of those swordsmen who can't do shit without a sword in their hands, thank you very much.

I need to be strong whether I have a weapon or whether I'm just using my fists. That's just the type of world I'm in right now.

As for weight training, that was something I had to explain to the blacksmith at Winterfell. He...he really didn't understand why I wanted discs of metal that weighed exactly 25kg and could be fitted onto a pole. At first he thought I was trying to make some sort of unorthodox weapon but when I showed him it was for training my muscles, he actually became quite interested in it. As such, he made dumbbells for me as well.

There were obviously a few hiccups here and there but with me drawing designs for him, he got the gist of it soon enough.

Sadly, it didn't really catch on like I wanted it to but what can you do? At least Ned understood how important it could be after I showed him my results after training for a year and a half. Quite a few of the guards have started lifting quite seriously. I guess I kinda brought gym culture to Westeros.

Yet that wasn't my original plan. My original plan was to start making exercise equipment and selling it to the Northern Lords. Sadly, not all of them were as understanding as Ned. They just said training with their weapons was enough. They 'didn't need useless hunks of metal' to get stronger. Apparently, anyway.

Yet this did give me ideas for the future. If becoming a seller of gym and exercise items doesn't work, what's to say my other ideas won't? I guess I just have to find an idea that fits Westeros.

Either way, weight training allowed me to improve upon my already incredible strength. Sort of like polishing an already precious gem until it fully sparkled to it's full potential. That's what I did by lifting weights. Of course, I didn't go overboard or anything - I just did enough to extend my limits, little by little.

Then what use were bodyweight/calisthenics exercises? For better control over my body, of course. Kinda like how a gymnast can do acrobatic stunts and hold their body horizontal to a pole. That's what I do. I guess it's to increase my agility and how well I can move my body.

I don't just want to be strong - I want to be agile. A strong dude is somewhat scary. A strong dude who can do parkour and dodge your attacks with near-inhuman flexibility, however? That's a terrifying opponent. In my opinion, anyway. After all, strength is only scary depending on how it's used.

Anyway, time went by and I was done with all my training. So much training that even my tremendous stamina couldn't hold up and I was breathing heavy as I was doing my after-workout stretching.

Once I'd done this, I wasn't completely done, however. Now, I had the arduous journey of...cardio.

It was just going past dawn right now, so the courtyard I was using was beginning to light up fully and servants and maids were beginning to move in between the towers and halls of Winterfell.

Looking at the slowly increasing foot traffic, I picked up into a run, going a route around the training courtyard which would've been about 100 meters all round; the courtyard was square and each side of the square was about 25 meters in length. Either way, it was a route I was intimately familiar with by this point.

This cardio training was basically limit-breaking training. After all, I'd worked myself to the bone with all the training before hand - yet I still aimed to do a few kilometers of running before breakfast. The only thing keeping me together was determination and stubbornness at this point. Luckily I was what I was (a Guts/Ackerman genetic combo) otherwise I'd have probably collapsed and died from a heart attack by now.

Obviously, I knew not to over train. Especially as a 13-year-old. But I only had two years left until canon started...and it wouldn't be a lie to say that information was slowly getting to me.

After all, it literally spelled the end to my peaceful life.

Whatever. I just kept running, focusing my mind on finishing the exercise as soon as possible so I could have a very hearty breakfast...Though after catching a whiff of my own smell, I decided breakfast would probably have to wait until after I'd washed myself.

. . .

Coming out of the hot baths in the Guest Hall where I lived in Winterfell, I tussled with a rough towel of...some kind of cloth. Nonetheless, it got the job done and I was finding my short dark brown drying quite quickly. The perks of having short hair, I guess.

Looking around, I saw a few maids giggle as they saw me and I gave a friendly wave to them, eliciting more giggles before they shot away like fish in a pond.

My gaze went downward and I looked over my body. For a few seconds I allowed myself to feel vain as I looked at the perfectly sculpted body I'd gained over all these years of training. It was hard to call this the body of a 13-year-old but...I guess top-tier genetics and a whole lot of training can make you look older than your age. Especially when puberty really starts kicking in.

Even if we're going off of height alone, I look beyond my age. I'm by no means a giant but for my age I'm definitely taller than average. I'm about 178cm tall or 5'10 - which easily put me a head above Jon and Robb. I'm even taller than Catelyn now. An inch or two shy of Ned, though. I definitely have more bulk than the Lord, however. Benefits of intense strength training and my innate genetics, I guess.

Either way, I guess exercise has more benefits than just making you stronger. This body of mine is truly absurd, after all. I guess I'm lucky I'm not a narcissist otherwise I'd be looking at myself in a mirror 24/7 or something. Or does even thinking that make me a narcissist? Huh. I guess you can have shower thoughts even when showers don't exist in your world and you're not even in the bathhouse anymore.

...Moving on, I brought my gaze back up from my abs and looked around before making my way to my room.

I had some time to spend before breakfast was ready and I was honestly unsure how to spend it.

In the end, I made my mind up that I was gonna do a bit of reading. There wasn't much to read about in Westeros, honestly, but at the very least I could read about basic first aid and how to make some battlefield drugs for pain and hemostasis. You never know when that type of knowledge can come in handy - except I totally do know when it'll come in handy - and it doesn't hurt to learn more than just how to kill people every day. So, I've been requesting books about medicine off of Maester Luwin for a while now.

It's honestly fascinating. Mainly because there's a hint of real-world medicine and then there's some outright magical shit involved. Not actual magic like 'abra-kadabra-alakazam' or whatever. But more like unusual properties that you wouldn't expect to see in normal medicine.

Like, for example; there's a certain type of grass called Blood Root and it's only property is helping blood clot. But you mix it with milk, and you get a poison that could make it so a person is incapable of having their blood clot. Which means something as little as a paper cut could kill someone through blood loss.*

(*A/N - Complete bollocks. Totally made up and pulled out of my ass for the sake of introducing medicine to the story. MC isn't gonna become a maester or anything and I certainly won't be adding any cheat medicine to the story that can fucking revive the dead or anything. I just thought adding some OC medicine/poison could spice up the world a little and deepen the world building of my fanfic.)

...Okay, I had been doing a LITTLE research on how to kill with certain medicinal concoctions (poisons) but it was all for the sake of finding antidotes and whatnot. Mainly because some people are most likely going to try and take my life through poisons in the future and I'd like to be prepared for that situation.

Either way, learning about medicine was an interesting hobby that would sooner or later show it's usefulness.

Coming out of this thought, I caught sight of someone I hadn't been expecting to see this early. Especially outside my room. The person, a girl, seemed caught in the midst of indecision as she raised and lowered her hand while looking at the door with somewhat anxious eyes.

Auburn hair a shade lighter than Catelyn's. The light of the torches in the dark hall hit the auburn locks on her head...and it shone like copper. Eyes a deeper shade of blue. When the light cast across her eyes, it was similar to how bright blue the sea would look when the sun was overhead. Her features were soft and feminine but they held their own type of noble strength. A real beauty - or rather, she would be in the future. Right now she was just a flower on the edge of blooming.

Getting closer to the girl who seemed to be in a world of her own, I smiled before speaking up, "Sansa," I called out, making the girl nearly jump out of her skin as she spun to look at me.

"Oh, Alaric--Ah!" Sansa started to greet me but quickly covered her eyes while turning her head away from me when she saw my half-naked state, "Y-your clothes, Alaric...where are they?" she meekly asked, causing me to burst into laughter.

Her cheeks and the edges of her ears burned a similar shade to her red hair and my laughter slowly petered off, "Well, I just had a bath and you're standing in front of my door, so how would I have any clothes, Sansa?" I asked before shaking my head, "Besides, you look like you needed something. What do you need?" I got straight to the point, not really liking the situation any longer after I realized I was near naked in front of an underage girl.

...Interdimensional FBI, please have mercy.

Huffing, Sansa gave a reply, still covering her eyes, "You could have gotten the maids to retrieve some clothes before you left the bathhouse, Alaric!" she complained before sighing and lowering her hands while obviously trying not to look, "P-please get dressed before we speak any further," she stuttered before stepping out of the way of my door.

"Sure," I nodded before looking at her with a teasing smile, "And what did I say about calling me Alaric, Sansa? Call me Ric, like you used to when we were younger," I teased her one last time before dipping into my room and laughing to myself.

A change I hadn't been expecting, had been Sansa's different age. She was older than her canonical self. She was only a year younger than Robb, Jon and myself. Which meant she was twelve - prime marrying age in Westeros. A weird thing to me, a guy from the 21st century, but something I'd had to get used to. After all, while it was genuinely disgusting to me, what could I do about it? Nothing, really. So, I just tried to ignore that part of the world. I put my focus toward older women - like Ros, who would happily accept my attention. Even without payment.

(A/N - If you know who that is, you know who that is~~)

Yet I couldn't deny that Sansa was growing to be a woman much quicker than I anticipated. She looked to be about sixteen, not twelve. Not that that gave me any ideas or anything - it was just an innocent observation. I guess girls in Westeros grow and mature...quicker, I guess? I don't know. It's weird but not the weirdest thing about this world.

Nevertheless, that didn't matter much to me right now, so I just focused on getting dressed after fully drying myself off.

Though what did matter right now was the obvious crush Sansa had developed for me. For reasons such as 'I'm not interested in kids' and the like, I can't exactly reciprocate her crush. Luckily, it's only a crush. It'll pass with time, I hope.

I mean, I'm not exactly her ideal type either. I'm just ruggedly handsome and the closest guy to her age who isn't family. Yet I'm not a prince or some high lord, so hopefully she'll give up on it soon.

And if she doesn't? Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Pulling a tunic over my head, I looked down at my clothed body and nodded before walking over and opening the door, "So, what is it you wanted, Sansa--?" I quirked an eyebrow up when I saw Sansa and Arya staring each other down like they were mortal enemies, "What in the Gods did I miss?" I asked aloud, which unfortunately set Sansa and Arya off at the same time as they tried to explain the perceived slight the other had committed.