9
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292 AC
North of the wall
Lagertha
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I sit up and rub my eyes, another dream about being a bird.
"Are you up Lagertha?" I nod at my mom as I stretch, looking around I don't see my brother and wonder where he ran off to.
"Where did Geor go?" She shrugs her shoulders and keeps packing her things. We have been traveling for days now and still have days to go.
"Got anything to drink?" She passes me some of her water and I drink it before getting off the sleeping mat we slept on and also rolling up the fur blanket.
After having them both rolled up I tie them together and put them down and look around again for Geor. I wonder if he went to the bathroom or something, I would like to leave as soon as possible. The faster we start traveling again the faster we can get to where we are going.
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Crunching snow alerts us of someone's approach and we both look off to the left and see Geor walking and stand back up.
"You sure took your time." I complain and he laughs.
"You were still sleeping when I got up, how was I to know you would wake? I was only gone a little while after all." Mother already tired of hearing us and ready to travel tosses the heavy pack to Geor and leaves without a word.
"Let's go then." Geor slings the pack on and walks past me, I follow after them and pray to see something to kill along the way. I want to eat some fresh meat, I keep my bow at the ready and my eyes vigilant.
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"Mom." Geor calls out to our mother and I can already tell what he will ask, again.
"I don't know when we will get there alright. No matter how many times you ask the answer won't change, do something to occupy your time like Lagertha is." Geor looks over at me and raises an eyebrow.
"She isn't doing anything other than walking." I shake my head and decide to ignore his grumblings and go back to scanning the trees around us.
A subtle crunching of snow in the distance finally draws my attention after hours of nothing but the sound of our footfall. I pull an arrow out and nock it before looking toward where I heard the sound.
A big rabbit, I draw and take aim. Holding my breath and focusing on the rabbit I let the arrow fly. The rabbit started to move but still got nailed in the side and is kicking so I run over to it.
"Good hit Lagertha." Geor happily complements while I finish it off by slitting its throat and holding it up to drain.
"Didn't you just say I wasn't doing anything?" Mom barks a laugh as Geor's face scrunches up.
"Alright, maybe you were doing something, I was just too bored to care." I shake my head and pass him the rabbit to clean, he can at least do that much.
"Hold onto it for a while longer, we should travel a bit more before stopping to cook it." Mom kills my good mood and we can only agree and keep walking.
Gods, I can't wait to get to where the king beyond the wall is gathering all of us. At first, I was looking forward to seeing some new faces. Now I just want to stop with all this traveling.
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292 AC
Braavos - House with the red door
Eragon Targaryen
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Watching Daenerys and Rhaenyra fight used to be almost painful to watch, now after only five moons, it is actually pretty fun. They used to get hit and have to take a break, but now they are bruising each other like it's fun.
I look over at Shiera enjoying the good show and lightly hit her arm.
"Oww, What was that for Eragon?" She glares and her mismatched eyes bore into me.
"Why don't you have any interest in learning to fight?" She stops glaring and purses her lips as she looks back at the two fighting in the yard. I can only see the left side of her face and her bright blue eye shining in the light.
"I just don't want to fight, I don't have to anyway with the big strong uncle I have who will protect me." She kicks her feet and looks back my way with a big smile, I look back at the yard while rolling my eyes at her. I know what she wants, she wants me to blush like a maiden from one of those stories she likes to read. Ever since she got those books she has been trying to cause me trouble.
"Well, I won't always be there so it's better if you at least know how to defend yourself from at least one person. If a bandit or something jumped you and you had no training it would be all over for you." I hear her hum and for a moment I think I might have actually started to convince her.
"But I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Viserys." I look back at her and see she is smiling again and I realize she was kidding.
"Whatever, I am sure if you called for him to help you he would come running." I say sarcastically, he would be more likely to try and send someone else upon hearing someone shouting for help.
"You are right about that, he has been becoming more insufferable as of late." I smile remembering the scolding mom gave him and the embarrassment he must have felt.
"Yea well mom really laid into him, he will be on the streets if he keeps stealing money from her room to visit the whores. Though that didn't stop him from going out and instead just caused him to do stupid stuff to try and make money." I don't understand his obsession with visiting the brothels.
I asked mom since she would know more and she only told me it's a bad habit of men. Then I got an earful about not acting like he does and to focus on improving myself and not worrying about girls. How Viserys somehow gets me in trouble without even being in the room amazed me.
"Ahhh!" A meaty thwack snaps me from my thoughts and I look back and see Danny on her knees and holding her hand. Rhaenyra looks worried so I get up and head over, I kneel next to her and try to grab her hand. "Don't!" she holds it to her chest.
"Let me see it so I can try and tell if you broke something." she scrunches her nose and slowly holds her hand out, it looks fine to me other than the giant red mark going across her knuckles. "I don't know, we might have to cut the whole hand off to safe the arm." She snatches it back and glares at me.
"It's not that bad, your just trying to scare me." She stands up and even picks the training sword back up. I smile internally and get out of the way before she can try to whack me.
"Let's try one more time." I hear her speak from behind me as I walk back to Shiera.
"She is fine?" She lazily opens her green eye hearing me approach.
"Yea, she will live." She closes her eye again and leans against the wall.
----
"You wanted to see me, mom?" I walked into her room after Shaena had come outside to tell me mom wanted to talk.
"Yes I did, can you do me a favor?" I sit down on the chest at the end of her bed and she looks at the chest momentarily with some apprehension. When she meets my eyes once more I begin to wonder what's in the chest, Danny and I, have tried to sneak in here and find out but it's locked, and no key can be found.
"Your brother as you know is still going out, he has been ignoring me when I ask him what he is doing and only tells me he is making money for his own use." I nod, he told me much the same when I asked.
"Ok, what does that have to do with a favor?" She smiles and leans over from her chair and runs her fingers through my hair and puts it behind my ear.
"We should cut this soon if you don't want to start tying it back out of the way. Anyway, I want you to try and find out what he is doing and let me know." She wants me to be a spy? How cool!
"Alright, but a favor begets a favor." I quickly come up with an idea for a favor before she can deny it and say something like it's my duty as her son. "Let me see what's in this chest." I smack my hand on the side of the wooden chest and hear a dull thunk.
Her eyes go wide and she looks at the chest once more and back at me, biting her lip she slowly nods.
"Ok, I will show you what's in there if you can find out without doing anything to cause yourself harm." That added on caused half my plans to fly away, if I can follow him from the rooftops then I can only attempt a more direct approach.
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"Viserys, I have come to ask you something important." He turns his head in his pillow and looks at me with tired eyes.
"What do you want?" I smile and hold my hand out eagerly.
"I need some money." He shoots up and glares at me.
"Make your own money if you want money." I shrink back with the act of a wounded animal.
"B-But but- I don't know how to make money or I wouldn't bother asking you for money." I do my best to act at his mercy so he will give me exactly what I want, his secret money-making scheme.
"Oh, that makes sense." He narrows his eyes in thought and a dangerous smile spreads across his face, I feel like what's in that chest isn't worth what's about to happen. "You need money?" I nod.
"I need some money soon." He continues to smile and reaches out to pat my shoulder.
"I got just the thing you can do to make some money for yourself."
----
"So we just help them unload the boat?" He rolls his eyes and grabs some cargo and heads for the ramp. I mimic him and grab a small box and head for the ramp.
"Exactly, and there are tons of people no one cares about doing this, so no one will even give us a second look. It's perfect, a day's pay is just enough to visit the brothel or go out and drink and also still stash some money away on the side." You would have to beat me to make me believe this is what he was doing to make money, I am sure in his head he isn't recognizing he is doing bottom-of-the-barrel work currently. He likely lost the little sense he had when mom cut him off and so this makes sense to him somehow, I am not going to complain though.
I might even start coming out to help him, some of these workers are built like a brick house with the muscles they developed from doing this.
And I finally get to see the inside of that chest! It's nothing grand, but to me, my curiosity has always itched whenever I saw that chest and now I will finally know.