66

Chapter 66: Ch 56 Things I do for love...Chapter Text

"...I just want to know who you are and where you're from?"

Jon's voice immediately made the boy freeze in his tracks. He gulped while slowly turning his head with a look of dread on his face as if he was about to be punished for trying to sneak away. Bran had hoped to get away from here while the two of them were distracted but it seemed that he was just too unlucky and the boy named Jon had spotted him.

"Don't worry, Bran. We are not going to hurt you," Jon said soothingly with his hands raised away from his sword. He also stopped some distance away from him to not scare the already terrified boy even more, "I just want to know where you're from, Bran,"

"I-I don't have a fixed home..." The boy answered hesitatingly, his eyes going from Jon to Sam, ready to sprint at any hint of violence, "B-But I used to live in Pentos when I was little..."

"Pentos? Really..." Jon asked with a hint of confusion in his tone, "But 'Bran' doesn't seem like a Pentosi name, does it... Are you sure, you're not from the North?"

"Er... Why do you keep asking that, Jon?" Sam suddenly intervened while getting up and walking over to stand beside Jon. The boy from Reach was still a little less queasy but felt much better after drinking some water, but he made sure not to look directly towards the dead bodies, nonetheless, for his stomach's sake. "The boy doesn't look like a Northerner to me?" Sam had spent quite many a months in the North so he could say with certainty that he could recognise a Northerner anywhere with their distinct accent, their constant gruffiness and their pale looks, and as far as he knew blond hair and blue eyes weren't Northern traits.

"He may not look like it..." Jon replied quietly while looking at the boy with an intense look in his eyes, "But he's definitely got the blood of the first men in him..."

While there were still some people with the First Men's blood alive in the other six kingdoms, like the Dayne's, the Blackwoods or the Mountain Men of the Vale, statistically speaking, if you find one here all the way in Essos, then most probably he is a Northerner instead of originating from those small pockets of people.

But Jon's scrutinizing gaze was making the boy shiver, which Sam noticed and he decided to intervene before his friend made the boy piss in his pants. "You may be right, Jon... But I think it would be better if we release his binds and get him warm before asking him any more questions..."

Jon was startled out of his thoughts before he looked at the boy and nodded his head, "Of course, You're right, Sam," he said before looking toward the boy with an apologetic look, "I am sorry, Bran. I was being too hasty," The boy just mutely shook his head at his apology, "Right, then! Sam, you take care of his binds and give him some water while I take care of the...er...bodies..."

"Sure," Sam replied quickly. He was happy as long as he wasn't the one who would have to deal with the bodies.

....

A few minutes later, Jon arrived back into the clearing with Peggy after taking care of the corpses. He had deposited them somewhere far enough that the smell wouldn't lure any wild animals to their camp. He didn't find anything worth taking off the Sellswords but he still brought back some miscellaneous things that may help Bran, things like a sword, a bow, some clothes, a pair of shoes and some local currency, among other things.

The boy looked a lot calmer now, as Sam seemed to have fed him the last remaining soup in the pot and some jerky. He was now seated on a rock on the other side of the fire and was gurgling water from their water pouch like a man who had been parched for days(which he probably was).

Only when the pouch was almost empty of water did Bran lower it with a distinct look of relief on his face, "Ah! That hit the spot—" he stopped midsentence and fell silent when he noticed that Jon had arrived back from his excursion. Unlike Sam, whom he had gotten familiar with in the last half hour, he was still a bit scared of Jon. After all, he had seen him demolish three skilled sellswords like it was nothing, and what was scarier was that he looked even younger than him.

"Was it good?" Jon asked amusedly while raising his eyebrow towards the pouch after seeing the boy suddenly going quiet from embarrassment.

"Oh... yes, it was the sweetest water I have ever tasted..." The boy answered with a shy smile on his face before his eyes suddenly widened as he looked down at the almost empty pouch in his hands, "Shit! I finished all your water," he burst out with a stricken look of guilt on his face. Water was a very precious commodity around these parts, and he knew how stupid it was for him to chug so much of it as he did.

"It's fine," Jon waved away Bran's worries with an unbothered smile while taking a seat beside Sam, "You can drink as much as you want, after all, we can always get some more..."

"But how..." Bran mumbled the question with a confused look on his face because as far as he knew there was no source of clean water nearby and the closest river was at least two days distance away by horse.

"Don't worry about it," echoed Jon and Sam simultaneously with identical smiles on their faces at his curious look, and Bran let it go.

There was a few minutes of awkward silence after that but before long Bran became uncomfortable with the curiosity in Jon's eyes and decided to speak up, "Um... When you were talking about North earlier... asking if I hail from there..." He began while receiving encouraging nods from Jon, "Well... were you talking about the North of Westeros... The one with Starks and the Hornwoods—"

"Yes! That's exactly the one I was talking about," Jon confirmed with a pleased look on his face, "In fact, I myself am the son of a Stark..." he said pointing at himself.

"You are?" Bran echoed with a look of shocked awe on his face, "B-But I thought the Starks were the Lords of Winterfell... If you are a Stark then why are you out here all alone with just the two of you..." Bran's mind couldn't comprehend why someone so important would roam this dangerous wilderness with no guards with him.

"Oh! You misunderstood... I have the blood of the Starks but I am not the heir. You see, I am a bastard so I don't carry the Stark name and am not really important enough to have guards—" Sam scoffed at that, "—so I don't have too many restrictions on where I can go." He finished with a shrug.

"Is that so..." Bran nodded with a confused look towards Sam wondering why he scoffed at Jon calling himself unimportant. He kept feeling that these two helpful strangers he was lucky enough to meet in the wilderness were just too mysterious.

"So you really are from North?" Sam asked curiously, bringing the conversation back to the main topic. He was still a bit sceptical and kept looking at Bran with a scrutinising gaze trying to find any hint of Northerness in the boy.

"I-I think so..." Bran answered hesitatingly, "Or at least that is what my father told me... He always told me that we are Northerners by blood..."

"I remember those sellswords mentioning something about ransoming you to your father for money," Jon said with a frown on his face, "If you tell us the name of your father and where he is, maybe we can help—"

"No! They were wrong!" The boy suddenly shouted startling Jon and Sam, "I repeatedly told them that m-my father is not rich at all but they didn't believe me and just beat me up," he rambled anxiously, "I am not lying! you would really not make much gold from ransoming me, so please—"

"Calm down, Bran," Jon interrupted the worried boy calmly but firmly, "You are mistaken. I just wanted to know your father's name and where he is to see if we can find him and help you reach him... that's all." Jon explained with a shrug, "Besides, we are rich enough that I don't think we need to ransom kids to earn money." Sam snorted at the massive understatement about how rich they were.

"Oh..." Bran said, his eyes jumping from Jon to Sam, looking closely at the young faces in front of him and only after seeing the clear eyes with no lies did he breathe a sigh of relief, "That's good, then... Umm, I am sorry for doubting you... It's just..."

"No, I understand," Jon said nodding thoughtfully, "After what you've been through... you're bound to be a little wary..."

"T-Thank you..." Bran replied gratefully, "I have heard many tales of how Northerners all simple folks," he continued scratching his cheek shyly, "I guess there was some truth to them..." Of course, he had also heard that they are all barbaric and brute-minded people who fight at the drop of a coin... but he wasn't about to say that.

"Tales? From whom?"

"My Father," Bran said while looking into the fire with a nostalgic smile, "He used to tell me all kinds of stories of the North... And even though he himself has never been there, he still proudly considers himself a Northerner and even introduces himself with a family name..."

'Never been to North,' Jon mouthed while exchanging confused glances with Sam, 'How could anyone have a Northern family name if he's never been to North,'

"Wait? What was this Family name again?"

"Huh? Oh! It's Hornwood!" Bran replied with a tilt of his head making Jon and Sam's eyes widen in surprise.

...

Bran could still remember how his Father always lectured him when he was just a 5-year-old lad, about how he should always introduce himself as a Northerner and how he should take pride in his heritage and that he came from a Noble family of Hornwood.

But Bran never understood what it meant... About what it meant to be a 'Hornwood'.

Did his ancestors have some kind of horns on their heads? Or did they live in an area where there were a lot of trees with horns? Did they cut wood for a living? Were they lords? Were they rich? Do they have an army? Do they even know about him?

He knew nothing at all...

The only thing he was aware of was that dastard 'story' that had been fed to him countless times since he was a child. The story of Torrhen Stark, the last king in the North... the King who knelt.

The story of how the King in the North, three hundred years ago, kneeled in front of the Dragons to save his kingdom and its people from being burned to ashes. Which was an absolutely sane decision from his perspective, but alas... his 'very brave' ancestors didn't think so and didn't like their King's decision very much.

His ancestors abhorred the very thought of surrendering to the Targaryens. In fact, they hated it so much that they decided that they would abandon their family, abandon their land and leave the North rather than stay under the dragons. They gathered all the 'brave' like-minded people they could find from all the nearby strongholds in North and then went on a voluntary exile from Westeros... forever. (Idiots!)

And that was the beginning of their journey...

While he didn't know the exact path they took, he knew that a few years down the line almost all of them ended up in Essos.

Obviously being the brute-minded people that they were, the only thing they knew how to do was drink, fight, fuck, kill and drink again. And the only way to make money off of doing that is to set up a sellswords company. So, The Company of the Rose, was established, named after the winter rose, a unique species of flower only found in the North.

And now about three hundred years later they were still a small sellswords company living, killing and dying, for a few pieces of gold. Over the years they've fought in countless wars and skirmishes, some times they were on this side while other times they were on that side. From guarding goods and mansions to looting caravans, they had taken all kinds of jobs and travelled all across the Essos.

There were a few times when the company came really close to extinction or being disbanded but somehow they always held on and still existed to this day. Maybe it was something about the Northern blood that made them especially hardy and stubborn.

But even though the name of the company may have remained unchanged, the same can't be said about the people inside it.

At present, less than half of the five hundred-something warriors in it are Northerners and even fewer actually look like they are from the North. It was something bound to happen after years of people dying, settling down, marrying locals, and other such things.

In fact, the number would have been a lot lower if not for the occasional infusion of new blood from the bastards and other low-born from the North who came to Essos to make a name for themselves and found out that the Company was the only place who would take them.

Another thing that changed a lot over the years, was the leadership. Bran didn't know who the first leader of the Company was, he assumed it was a second son of a Stark or some other family. But after a lot of fighting, shuffling, coups, deaths and other things, not a lot of the original families survived and now a Hornwood had come out on the top to become the leader of the present-day Company of the Rose, and he just so happen to be Bran's father.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Jon interrupted Bran's story with an incredulous look on his face, "So you mean to tell me that not only do you belong to the Company of the Rose, you are also the son of its leader," he asked to which Bran nodded, "Then why did you say that you came from Pentos?"

"Oh! Well, that's because It's only been five months since I joined the company, before that I lived in Pentos along with the children and the families of the other members of the Company..."

"B-But how did you get captured if you were the son of the company's leader?" Sam asked with a look of incomprehension on his face. After all, it should be almost impossible for a few men to capture the son of the leader of a sellswords company from their midst.

"Um... It was mostly my own fault..." he said with a flushed look on his face, "I-I was angry at my father for something and ran out of the camp in the middle of the night without telling anyone, and unfortunately I was unlucky enough to get caught soon after that..."

"Oh... And why did you run away?"

Bran hesitated for a while before he answered, "Well, there's this girl... Lea..."

'Of course there is' thought Jon and Sam simultaneously while nodding their heads.

Bran couldn't remember the first time he saw Lea... it was probably when they were just toddlers. He just knew that he had been friends with her since he could remember.

They lived in the same house and were of the same age, his father was the leader and her father was the second in command of the company so they had grown up spending almost every single day with each other.

Whether it was eating, training, or playing, they were always together. In fact, they even joined the Company of the Rose at the same time, him as a fighter and her as a cook... even though she could fight almost as well as him.

Lea was the most cheerful person he had ever known, she could brighten up any room just by being in there, there was not a single evil bone in her body and she was a rare kind soul in this World...

And now she was dying...

He didn't know why. He didn't know how. He didn't even know when...

All he knew was that he had never seen a person look so pale and lifeless, it was as if someone had sucked all the life out of her. And it had all happened so abruptly. One day she was there laughing, gossiping, and cooking dinner for the camp with the other cooks. And the very next day she had suddenly fallen gravely sick. She couldn't even get up from her bed and was constantly coughing, sometimes so harshly that she even spat blood...

The useless camp healer couldn't even determine the cause of her sudden sickness, all he could diagnose was that she had some kind of fever and that only a city healer would be able to cure her.

As if it was so easy to get a city healer...

First of all, you needed an absurd amount of money to even get in through the door to have a chance to see a city healer. And even if you were able to collect the money he may as well not help you for some absurd reasons such as he didn't like the way you look or that you smell funny.

Only rich Merchants and powerful Magister had the power to move them. For mercenaries or smallfolks like them, he may as well have the power of a god... and the healer knew that fact very well...

But even if it didn't work out in the end, even if it was all fruitless, Bran still wanted to give it a try in a bid to save Lea. And the first hurdle to do that was to get money as he didn't have any.

So he immediately went for his father to demand that he give him the money to help him. But his father said there was no money to give, as they barely had enough to run the Company and that they would only get more money when their current job was completed.

He knew that it was very unreasonable and that his father was helpless in this situation but it didn't matter to Bran at that time, he raged and cursed at his father for his denial to help him before storming out of his tent.

He drank himself into a stupor for the first time that night. He had lost all hope by that point and was drowning himself in his sorrows... when he heard something that filled him with hope once again.

A guard was telling another guard that the son of a magister was going to have a name day celebration in a few days in Pentos and that the only gift the son demanded was to have a lion as a pet. And now there was a bounty of about a thousand gold out for anyone who could get them a lion cub.

Being in the haze of alcohol that he was, he didn't think too much and immediately set off during the night on a hunt without telling anyone, only taking a horse and some ration with him. He had no concrete plan in his mind on how he would accomplish it, he just knew that it was his last hope.

"So you set out alone... hoping to somehow stumble on a lion, kill it and then capture its cub..." Sam asked with an incredulous look on his face, trying to decide if he was stupid or brave.

"Y-Yes..." Bran answered while looking down in embarrassment since he knew how foolish his decision was in retrospect.

"So did you find it?" Jon asked curiously, "Did you find a lion?"

"No. I didn't even get a chance to search for them..." Bran shook his head disappointedly, "I don't know if I was just unlucky or something but somehow the very next day I found my camp surrounded by those sellswords from the Gallant men..." He shivered as he thought back to the cruel torture he had to endure under their care and how close he came to being sold as a slave... if it wasn't for these Northerners.

'That seems all too convenient...' Jon thought with a frown on his face. He could smell something fishy in this situation, even though he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

"I just hope I don't run into any more problems on the way back..." He said with a depressed look on his face.

"You don't need to worry about that," Jon said with a smile, "We'll bring you back to the Company of Rose safely..."

"You will?" Bran asked as his eyes went wide from surprise, "But... why?"

"Because we have the same destination."