Ch 3-The Grumpkin—Part 1

I was standing at the bow of my ship looking far into the distance with the help of a far eye. My assistant was standing beside me giving me a report.

"Only 2 ships need an emergency repair, Captain. The rest of them are working in optimum condition" He said to me while reading from a notebook.

"2 ships out of the 115 ships I have in my fleet falling to pieces, is a lot better than I expected. How about our food stock" I asked.

"We should be fine for the return journey, as long as we reach Valariya in 5 days, Captain," he replied after looking at the report in his hands for a while.

"Well then, that should not be a problem, because I can see the smokes of valyria in the distance," I said while handing him the far-eye. I started shouting immediately.

"Bring out the filter masks and give one to everyone on the ships. You! Flagbearer! Send a signal to every ship in our fleet for them to..."

"Jo... Jon ... Jon... JON"

An irritating voice was shouting from somewhere far away and jostling me and I was telling it to stop.

Suddenly the fog inside my head cleared and I found myself inside my room. The source of that irritating voice was my brother,

"JON! JON! WAKE UP!" who will get the beating of his life if he doesn't stop shaking me.

"Go Away Let me sleep," I shouted back and pulled the blanket on my head. For a moment of bliss I thought he had gone away and the next second I felt my blanket pulled away from me. I sat up on my bed angrily and looked at him standing in the corner with that infuriating innocent smile on his face.

"I'll KILL YOU, STARK," I said through my gritted teeth.

"You'll have to get up for that," he replied smugly.

I fell back with a groan on my bed. Now wide awake but too tired to walk across the room and beat the snot out of that annoying brat.

"Why in the seven hell did you wake me up at this ungodly hour, Robb," I sighed and started slowly getting out of my bed.

"You promised to teach me to swim," he said eagerly, "and If we don't go now then everyone's going to be awake and someone will catch us,"

"You already know almost everything you need to swim," I grouched while changing my night clothes into something suitable for the cold outside, not that they are going to be any help while swimming naked, I shivered at the thought.

"Yeah, but what If I drown because I am all alone out there? You'll lose your favorite brother," he said while making a sad face.

"You just want someone to be there to share punishment with you if we get caught," I snarked toward him while walking toward the door, "And you are my only brother,"

He stuck a tongue at me and went outside the door with me following right behind him. I closed the door behind me and as I looked around, I noticed it was still quite dark outside and it would be an hour before the sun rises. As I was slowly walking down the stairs, I found Robb, already at the bottom of the stairs, waving at me to hurry up.

I sighed and went down the stairs two steps at a time. We silently crossed the courtyard toward the armory. We only had to hide twice, one time because of a maid rushing to the kitchen and the other time because of a sleepy guard doing night patrol.

After that, it was a smooth journey, we passed the armory and went straight into the godswood. We kept walking silently between the thick canopy of trees which mostly consisted of birch, oak, and ironwood. The ground was hard and packed with moss and thousands-year-old humus.

The godswood was a dark primal forest that had been left untouched for thousands of years, and the silence was only broken by the sounds of unidentified creatures of the forest and leaves crunching under our feet, so it could have scared a grown man into running let alone two kids. But we had been coming here for so long, mostly with Father, that the place had lost its mysteries to us.

We passed by a couple of more trees before we came into a clearing with a tall weirwood tree. The weirwood had bark white as bone, dark red leaves, and a long and melancholy face carved in the bark, its deep-cut eyes red with dried sap. In the center of the clearing was a small, dark, and cold pool.

We both kept walking in until we stopped in front of the weirwood tree and then simultaneously knelt there to pray. I prayed to the old gods for the autumn to end a bit sooner and for the health of everyone in our family, even Catelyn.

When I came into this world I had not been a particularly faithful person, never quite believing in any of the gods. But as Lord Stark began to bring me and Robb to pray here once or twice a week, it became a habit for me. And I found it so calming to pray here that before I knew it, I was a follower of the old gods not that there were any particular requirements for it. The old gods don't actually demand anything unlike the faith of the Seven.

After a few seconds, I stood up and found Robb stripping his clothes in front of the pool.

"What are you doing?" I asked while moving toward him.

"Going for a swim, the thing we came here for, you know," he said while rolling his eyes.

"Not in this cold pool, I thought we were going for the three pools by the guest house, where the water comes from the hot springs," I said speaking slowly as if talking to a particularly dimwitted child, "The summer has not arrived yet, you do know that,"

"I heard old Nan say that it's almost autumn, so the water's not going be that cold," he said while stripping the last of his clothes to stand in front of the pool naked while looking at me in anticipation.

"You are insane!" I said while not moving at all to join him.

"It's called being valiant and manly," he said while puffing his chest and standing with his hands on his waist.

I stared at him in silence for a few moments before speaking in a deadpan,

"You look stupid,"

He looked sheepish for a moment before he took a few steps away from the pool and then after giving me a challenging smirk took a running start and jumped right into the pool.

"Whoohoo... " his excited shout echoed in the silent forest before he went under the water. It took a few seconds before he came back up and looked toward me with a wide grin on his face.

"Come... onnn...ittsss...noottt... thaaat... cooooldddd," he said with his teeth clattering.

"I believe you," I said sarcastically while taking a seat on a rock.

"You're not going leave me all alone here, Are you?" he said smoothly after a few minutes, having already gotten accustomed to the cold water. It gets really hard to doubt magic is there in our blood when looking at the sight of a kid adapting to almost freezing water in a matter of minutes.

While we both are only 3-year-olds we are taller and more robust than any 5 or 6-year-old kid out there. We very rarely get sick with a cold and while other people would shiver uncontrollably on a particularly cold day we barely feel it.

"Are you coming in or not!" he shouted.

"I am not"

"If you have the blood of starks of winter in you then you will not be afraid of a little cold and If you don't come inside then you're not my brother," he said while pouting and looking at me from the corner of his eyes.

"You think your childish provocation will work on me," I said while raising an eyebrow with a little smile on my face.

"Come on pleaaassse..." he whined like a 3-year-old.

"Alright! Alright! I am coming don't start crying," I said before standing up and divesting my clothes beside Robb's. I took a breath and jumped straight into the pool.

The cold water knocked the wind out of me and I felt like needles were pricking at my skin, all over my body. I swam to the surface of the water and took slow deep breaths while keeping my eyes closed. Only a couple of seconds later, my body got used to the cold water and I could almost feel the pores across my body shrinking and blood circulating faster.

After a moment of just enjoying the coolness of the water on my skin, I opened my eyes and was instantly splashed with a huge amount of water out of nowhere. I started coughing and rubbing my eyes while listening to Robb laughing his ass off. I opened my eyes and glared at him with murderous eyes.

He must have seen something on my face because he immediately started swimming away from me.

"Get back here, You Bastard!," I shouted while swimming after him.

"I am not the bastard, You are!" he said while laughing out loud and when he looked back to check on me, he squealed like a little girl when he found out how close I was and tried to swim away even faster.

We played in the pool till the sun's rays could be seen on the horizon, and after having our fill of the fun, we wore our clothes and lay down beside the pool to calm down our breathing.