3 Birth and Childhood
I found this great track of medieval music. You can play it while reading, guaranteed quality from your Pharoah here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za8eYjQ7Nz8
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I was born in 273 AC in Mereen in the Company of Rose's camp just outside the city. I think it was a jab from Anubis to have me born under a great pyramid not dissimilar to the one I died under in Giza. I was named Sirius Wolfborn as I was born in the Hour of the Wolf, known in Westeros as the darkest hour of the night, and a wandering pack of red wolves kept howling the moment I was labored out of my mother's womb and only stopped as the Hour of the Wolf passed. It was seen as a great omen by my father and his men.
My father is Cregan Stark the current Company Commander of the Company of Rose. I was named Sirius which means The Great Wolf in the Old Tongue of my ancestors, the First Men. My mother, Selena, was a beautiful woman who was a daughter of Aryos Clagos, a famous and wealthy merchant in Volantis from the Old Blood whose main trade was silk and spices. My maternal grandfather was one of the richest and most prestigious merchants of the elephant faction of the Old Blood of Volantis. The Old Blood are the nobles of Volantis who can trace their lineage to Valyria and consider themselves the successors of Valyria. The Old Blood had two factions as the two political poles ruling Volantis, the tiger and the elephant. The Tiger Party advocates military conquest and ruling with steel, while The Elephant Party advocates trade and ruling with gold. The two parties although have hidden strife and competition stand together as the ruling caste of Volantis.
Aryos Clagos was not popular among the Old Blood as he abhorred the slave trade which was the lifeline of the Old Blood. Although he was not supported as a political candidate he was feared for his great wealth and connections throughout Essos. His trade of silk and spices made him a tremendous amount of Honor, the coin of Volantis. Silk was valued everywhere in the Known World, even the hardy people of the North appreciated Silk. Spices were also a luxury product that was sought eagerly by the merchant princes of Essos and the Great Houses of Westeros. Aryos was a careful man who kept reinvesting his money until he had a standing army of 5,000 Unsullied and another 1,000 of his trained riders along with 10 White Elephants. This military power although not the greatest in the area guaranteed the dread of the mere idea of looting his trading caravans or attacking his mansion.
I was lost in fantasy as I got to know how powerful my grandfather and how he will be a great support to my future endeavors until I was slammed with the hard truth. Apparently, my dear father and mother eloped together due to my grandfather's vehement refusal of this marriage due to my father's lifestyle as a commander of a free company. Reportedly, he shouted angrily " I will never give my only daughter's hand to a damn sellsword, commander or not." So he basically hates the guts of my father as he was deeply hurt by his daughter leaving him. My twin uncles, Kyrios and Nyrios, were on good terms with my father and appreciated his military power and wit as well as his dedication to their younger sister, they could only cower in the face of Aryos Clagos, the mighty Prince of Spice and Silk.
Although I have some hope that he might forgive my parents due to my existence, I can not hold much hope that such a thing will happen. I had to plan with what I can guarantee which is basically The Company of Rose.
The Company of Rose was considered the most strong and mysterious free company in Essos. Its roots were laid deep as my ancestors were active in Essos for hundreds of years, some even believe they dated back to the Century of Blood. Of course, I guessed there were rumors spread by my ancestors as to cover their Stark lineage as Jon Stark was tracked repeatedly by the Targaryens who thought that a living Stark with the Winter Crown and Frostmourne was a source of threat as he could revive the Winter Kingdom at some point. These concerns were ignored later due to the lack of any leads as to where did Jon Stark disappear as rumors came that he went to the Summer Islands, others said he died on the belly of a whore in Lys and some rumors even said he was killed by some Dothraki horse lord. Also, the Targaryens had their dragons to assure them that they can still bend the North to its knees should they rise again.
So the story of Jon Stark the last heir to the Winter Kingdom and supposedly King of Winter, after his father Torrhen renounced his Kingship and bent the knee, was long forgotten in the rivers of time except for some records in the Citadel and the maesters of Winterfell, who recorded the separation of the Rose cadet branch, as they called it, since the time of Jon the Regal Wolf who refused to bend the knee believing in the Old Gods and the tales of the Great Wolves who protected House Stark for millennia. He believed that their wolf blood can never be tamed even by dragons, he believed the Great Wolves of the North and the Old Gods who gave them their magical blood will protect them, however, he was forced to leave his home after his father knelt to Aegon the Conqueror in The Neck.
The Company of Rose still claimed hegemony over the Free Companies especially in the last hundred years since it was confirmed that the dragons have died out and we no longer had to fear the Targaryens. It had the basis to be considered the most fearful as it was 20,000 man strong, all of whom are great horse riders and battled hardened elite infantry. The Silent Army as they are called for their great discipline as it is said that clients would wonder how the 20,000 elite cavalries would maintain formation for hours without a single whisper heard even their horses do not neigh until their Commander orders and they turn into ferocious beasts who reap lives like gods of death. The Army is highly disciplined and trained from a young age in horsemanship, lances for cavalry charge as well as longswords for close-quarters combat.
The Silent Army is armed to the teeth with pitch-black steel armor and swords, long lances, a polearm weapon like the spear but instead of the blade it is a cone-shaped pointed head of cast steel for effective penetration of armors during a cavalry charge. This army was developed over three centuries and it was more effective than any Westerosi army as they lived to fight and the whole lifeline if the company depended on their military strength, so they were more focused on training and the Commanders invested their time and resources on this army with no qualms unlike the Lords of Westeros who only called their banners and levied some farmers to march when wars broke out. The army was also bolstered by a continuous supply of finest Dothraki horses, a token of my forefathers' continuous effort to secure ties with the horse lords and trading horses with forged steel Arakhs for them in exchange for horses which the Dothraki had plenty of.
These were the information I could gather through early years of playing a dumb child as to not freak my parents out, although I did display some genius in my early years as I grew physically faster than other kids and I could even walk and talk some simple sentences by the time of my first name day. I was a beautiful child with a square jaw and chiseled high cheekbones, prominent nose, and blood-red lips, sharp eyebrows. I also took my mother's Valyrian Silver-Platinum silky hair. My most captivating feature was my shining ice blue eyes of my father proving my lineage of Jon Stark's descendants.
By my fourth name day, I mastered the common tongue, which is basically English with a British accent, I also learned Dothraki and High Valyrian. By my fifth name day, I started asking my father for some liberty in starting training in swordsmanship. Although I have been training my fitness for three years now it was just some basic training for my body as pushups were the hardest I did, I wanted to start training in real fighting. I remembered Spartans were thrown into the wilderness to fight wolves by the age of seven so I thought five was a suitable age to start training without stunting my growth. My father was convinced due to my stubbornness and it also helped that I had abnormal growth as I was almost 130 cm tall towering over almost all children who passed their tenth name day.
