Ch 34 Sweet Apples Part 1

As the first light of dawn broke through the horizon, painting the sky in hues of pink and gold, Jon Snow stood at the bow of the ship, his gaze fixed on the distant shoreline that was slowly coming into view. The brisk sea breeze ruffled his dark hair, and the rhythmic creaking of the ship's timbers beneath his feet seemed to echo the anticipation in his heart.

Jon took a deep breath of the morning air and a smile automatically appeared on his face. It had been a long time since he was on a ship that he wasn't commandeering, but being a customer just renting a cabin also felt good from time to time.

And then, through the gentle morning mist, emerged the first sight any arriving sailor sees—the Hightower... said to be older than the city itself. Rising impossibly tall, it seemed to touch the very heavens. Its white stone glowed ethereally in the growing light, and its form was a striking blend of strength and elegance. Jon had seen castles and fortresses before, but this was something altogether different.

And then finally, his destination, Oldtown, a city so old that no one knows how old it is. The which no one knew how old it was, became visible a few minutes later. It was the largest and richest city in the Seven Kingdoms, although the capital, King's Landing, is more populous.

The Citadel, the greatest seat of knowledge in the known world, home to the Maesters and their Conclave, was located upriver on both sides of the Honeywine River. Boys and Men gather here from all over Westeros and even from Essos, to learn, study and forge a Maester's chain.

Also located in this town was the Starry Sept, the seat of the High Septons for a thousand years, which made Oldtown the unquestioned centre of the Faith for all of Westeros, until it lost that status to Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing.

As he was lost in taking in the beauty of the city, he felt Sam arrive beside him, who was also in awe of the splendour of the magnificent city, "So did you finish writing the letter?" Jon asked after a few moments.

"Umm... Yes," Sam said, reluctantly taking his eyes away from the beacon of Hightower, "I wrote one for my mother and one for my sister b-but I wasn't able to think of anything to write to my father... J-Just imagining his angry face..." Sam gulped and shivered, before shaking his head.

"How about you get creative..." Jon smirked as he said to Sam, "You know curse him, tell him what a shitty father he was... How he has a stick up his arse or how you'll beat the shit out of him when you grow up... What? Is it too soon?" Jon asked.

Sam's eyes widened in horror as he shook his head fiercely, even the thought of doing things made Sam almost piss his pants, so Jon shrugged, "Mmm... Then maybe not writing one for him is the best... It would probably irk him the most to know that you didn't even consider it relevant to tell him that you're running away..."

"I don't know about that...." Sam said, self-deprecatingly, "I think he would probably be the happiest knowing that I've run away... that I won't disgrace him anymore..." Sam shook his head before he took a deep breath and changed the subject, "Anyway, Where are we going to send these letters from? Are you thinking about borrowing a raven from the Citadel because I heard they are a bit costly and that they charge by the letter..."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that..." Jon said with a mysterious smile while patting his shoulder, "You just need to think about what you're going to do in Oldtown... you said that it was your dream to become a Maester didn't you... So why don't you come with me and while I check for some information I want, you can see how the people there actually work..."

"Yes... I'd like that," Sam said with an honest smile on his face, just imagining all the books he would have access to, all the history he could read about from the Targaereans to the Doom of Valariya, from the Long Night to the Andal Invasion and so on, filled his chest with jubilance.

Jon looked at the silly smile on Sam's face with pity, "You imagine that if you became an acolyte you would have access to all the books and that all you would have to do is learn, Don't you?"

"Hmm..." Sam let out a confused noise as he tilted his head, "Yes? Isn't that so? I-I mean I know that they have to do some work like copying things but..." he stopped when he was the look of sympathy that Jon was giving him.

"You'll know the truth when you see them... when you see what acolytes actually do... Then maybe you wouldn't be so eager to become one..."

...

"Mom! MOM!! Where are you?!!" cried a 13-year-old girl, rushing around her home in search of her mother.

"Over here!" came the shout from the backyard, and the girl darted through the house toward the back, "Didn't I tell you not to run—"

"A SHIP!" the girl interrupted her mother hurriedly, her eyes were wide and she was sweating from running all the way from the port, "There's a ship at the port," she said out of breath.

"So? I can't believe you still get so excited about seeing a ship," her mother remarked, shaking her head. She sat on a wooden chair under the shade of a tree in their backyard, knitting a woollen sweater. "Honestly, Sara, when are you going to grow up—"

"You don't understand," Sara interrupted impatiently, finally having caught her breath, "It's filled with all kinds of food from the South like wheat, barley and other stuff and I even saw apples, APPLES! mother, they have apples,"

"What Apples? And who would bring crops at this time of the year..." Sara's mother calmly asked while tilting her head, her hands hadn't stopped knitting yet, "Where did you say the ship came from?"

"The Reach! REACH" Sara shouted, trying to make her mother understand the urgency of the situation.

"Why are you shouting?" the mother said with a frown, "And do you mean the Reach in the South? I didn't ships went that far south wherever that is..."

"Yes, That Reach! Now, don't just sit there!" Sara said, jumping at her place from all the excitement, "We need to hurry up or all of the stuff is going to be sold out of apples... everyone's already rushing to buy them,"

"Why? It's not like we'll be able to afford it..." the mother said, she still remembered the last that she'd seen apples was when she had got a job as a temporary maid at a feast thrown by Lady Barbery Dustin in the castle of Barrow Hall. She had sneakily stolen a single apple and then when she got home, she and her daughter shared it, and from that day her daughter had become a fan of the fruit and it became her favourite one, not that they were ever able to partake in it again.

"We can! That's what I've been trying to say all this while," Sara said, finally having enough of her mother's tardiness, she snatched the knitting needles and wool from her hand, "HEY!" and then pulled her inside the house ignoring her protest, "It's all stupid cheap! We can easily buy them,"

"What's Cheap?"

"EVERYTHING! Everything's cheap from apples to wheat, everything's being sold for pennies,"

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