Chapter 2

Chapter 2: 2

As I watched the oars dip into the water before rising once again as we were propelled forwards towards the north, I once again found myself questioning my earlier excitement about finding myself in a living bonafide sword and magic world.

Mind you though, I hadn't been all that particularly happy in the beginning anyway. I wouldn't have minded ended up in say, Middle-earth, why? Because at least in that world, goodwill prevail over evil. In Westeros, that was all thrown up into the air, what with it's varying shades of grey and sometimes, lighter shades of black.

Was there even such a thing called a lighter shade of black? Black was still black. It couldn't get any lighter than it already was.

I do believe when people think of darkness, black exists for a reason.

Anyway, I was going off tangent. I was heading north to find myself a Stark bride. Failing that, I was sure there would be more than enough women of First Men ancestry to marry.

Once again, I was going for another Bloodraven.

I know the odds are a longshot, after all, Egg had married a Blackwood, believers in the old gods and of First Men descent, yet that hadn't resulted in any of his children being a warg or greenseer or whatever.

Then again, the Blackwoods had intermarried quite a few times with those of pesky Andals with their Seven and their superior writing system and all that bullshit. Perhaps a proper First Men House like the Starks would be more agreeable in setting up the right situation for another Bloodraven.

And anyway, something about me was clearly magical. One doesn't simply wake up in the body of a fictional character and not question what the hell is going on.

I certainly had, for like a few seconds before I realised what was happening. It had happened, so no point in smarting over the small details, right?

And anyway, it was probably the act of some bullshit Omni-potent being that was clearly bored and needed something to do to amuse itself. Throwing some random person into the body of Aerys seemed something right up the alley of such a being.

What did the internet call such things? Rob? Asp? Eh, I can't remember and couldn't really careless. It had happened, no need to fuss over the small details.

Just needed to get myself a Stark wife, failing that, another notable First Men House. Failing that, I can just go north and get myself a wildling.

Stealing works both ways, right?

...Probably should shelve that thought for now. I don't think such a union would fly with any of the westerosi.

And I didn't particularly like the thought of having my throat slit during the night when I'm sleeping. Might as well marry Rhaella if that is the future I would be looking forward to.

I was so lost in my thoughts about finding a wife that I more or less jumped when someone spoke from behind me, "What are you thinking about so hard?"

I turned my head so fast that I might as well near broke my own neck doing so. Or give myself whiplash. Both didn't particularly sleep well with me, "Steffon." I breathed. A tingle in my neck told me that I had turned my head too fast and I was paying for it with some sore neck muscles.

The youth and future heir of Storm's End smiled some as he walked up to the gunwale to stand beside me. For someone that was only twelve years old, the little bugger was taller than someone his age had the right to be.

If I didn't know anybody, I would swear that he was pushing six foot and whatever he did in the training grounds was clearly working for him, that and puberty as he had no visible baby fat on that stupidly handsome face of his.

"Coz," He yawned as he leaned forward, "What a beautiful day it is today, is it not? Nothing but the blue sky above us, and the blue of the narrow sea in front of us."

I thumbed in the opposite direction of where we were staring, "Lands in the other direction."

"Why would I want to see land? I'm a Baratheon of Storm's End. I grew up seeing the sea and the feel of it's fury."

"I suppose that explains why your chambers face the sea then."

"Not that I love spending my time in the capital among my extended family, I do miss home. Might as well try and accommodate myself as best as I can."

See, I had read somewhere that Aerys, Steffon and Tywin had been the best of buddies back in the good old days. I have had younger friends, but when I think of best friends, I always thought of someone who was more or less among my age.

Steffon was twelve.

Tywin was sixteen.

And I was smack dab in the middle at fourteen.

Like I said, I had younger friends and older friends, but most of my more solid mates were solidly my age, or a year younger. I knew people that were years younger than me and older than me, but that didn't mean I had taken my time to hang around with them unless, you know, reasons.

I was never that sociable, so that might be the reason as to why I found this rather supposed tight knit group of nobles somewhat perplexing.

What exactly did they talk about and what exactly did they have in common? From Aerys' own memories, I can understand his attachment to Steffon. He was his cousin and therefore family. Tywin was more of a move by Aerys himself to get somewhat closer to Joanna so he could bone her or marry her or whatever he-I-whatever meant to do with her.

I supposed Tywin befriending me as well was more of a strategical move more than anything else. I was the heir after Jaehaerys and it wouldn't hurt him to be on good terms with me, especially if he was going to go on some sort of agenda in the future.

Like trying to make a certain daughter of his queen. I had decided to let Joanna and Tywin go ahead. Like I had said before, didn't need to have him pissed off at me before the universe threw something in my direction to make him dislike me.

Truth be told, I don't think he liked me all that much.

Speaking of futures wives and all that, how the hell did the Steffon and Cassana Estermont match ever come to pass? The Estermont's weren't really all that powerful of a noble family or all that prominent in the Stormlands...then again, my opinion was solely based on Cersei's point of view from when she recollected her time visiting her in-laws.

And Cersei wasn't the most reliable of narrators around.

That could not be stressed enough.

I groaned to myself as I realised that my heir was going to be stuck with Cersei as his betrothed. Like I said, I didn't plan on having Tywin as my enemy. He was certainly far smarter than me when it came to the whole politicking thing.

Mind you though, I doubt his daughter being betrothed to whatever heir I sprout from the seed of my loins would be enough for Tywin unless she was actually queen...great. Now I had to live with the paranoia that Tywin might actually try to kill me to expedite the process.

Brill. Just brill.

"What's wrong?" Steffon asked, having noticed me groaning for no apparent reason from his perspective.

I rubbed at my temple to rid the incoming headache my paranoia was causing me. And I wasn't even king yet, "Nothing. Just thinking."

"You've been doing that for the past month we've been at sea." He pursed his lips for a moment, in quiet thought, "...I don't think I've seen you think so much, unless you were trying to find yourself into the skirts of some lady or serving girl. Actually, I'm surprised I haven't found you writing into that little book you've suddenly started carrying around."

I absently patted my hand at the inner pocket of the leather coat that I wore and was assured at the feeling of the notebook underneath the fine leather that Steffon was alluding to, "Decided to give my mind a break from all the brainstorming I've been doing. Tiresome work."

A confused look came upon the young lordling, "Brainstorming?"

If Steffon had been waiting for me to clear up his understanding of the term, he was going to have to wait, for all I did, was simply nod, "Yes, brainstorming."

The notebook held everything I could remember about the modern world. You know, the world that consisted of upright, moral people that found the killing of children utterly horrifying and the crossing of the moral event horizon. Were women had the same rights as men...well, near enough equality anyway. Far better than this place.

Were little things such as air travel were possible. Because really, a month at sea? I've been on a cruise before. It didn't take that boat months just to travel from one part of Europe to another, and I am positive the distance between the start and finish was a couple thousand miles between.

...Although, this ship sailed on the power of both a sail and rowing, whilst the ship I was thinking of was a modern thing that relied on the power of the combustion engine and propellers and all that.

I already had an inkling of what I was going to introduce at the very least to improve the lot of the people of westeros. Gunpowder was probably not one of those things.

A society so entrenched in feudalism being introduced to gunpowder? Holy shit.

That was a whole can of worms that I didn't want to open.

And anyway, who was to say that cordite or the ingredients for gunpowder reacted the same in this world compared to that of Earth? I was pretty positive that there was more to the Medieval Stasis on planetos that couldn't all be attributed to the general rule of Magic, Ain't Got To Explain Shit.

The same could be applied to electricity...then again, I had seen lightning flash in the distance from a storm, so electricity was a possibility. Just needed to find myself a lodestone.

Failing that, I could rig up some sort of generator, I suppose. Just need iron and some fire. Thank you the Time Machine Poster.

I was even more thankful of my memory that could recall the odd fact I have read about from out of the blue like it was nothing.

"Is Tywin below?" I asked, out of the blue.

Steffon flashed an amused grin on his face, "Aye. I suppose it's true then, all cats, even lion's don't take kindly to water."

I held back a laugh, "Don't say that to his face. He probably won't take it kindly." Tywin never laughed or smiled. I think I remembered something from the books about him not trusting laughter or something like that.

A quirk that had manifested itself at having his father laughed at by his own bannermen and probably by every other lord in westeros.

"Unless he's giving you one of those looks of his, I can never tell with him." Steffon shrugged as he looked off into the distance, "If I strain my eyes, do you think I can see one of the Free Cities from here?"

"Not even with the best telescopes the Myrish are able to build." I replied with a grunt. The narrow sea was anything but narrow. Well, yes, it was blatantly the planetos version of the English Channel or the North Sea, but I thought it was more akin to the Channel more than anything else.

Apparently, with a fast enough ship and with good wind on your side, at best, it would be a week crossing it. Not even a month at the worst of times.

The only problem was the constant storms that periodically happened in the body of water, especially during autumn and winter where they increased in frequency.

"Telescope?" Steffon sounded out the word as if he had never heard of it before...which was more than likely true since he had never heard of the word before. His expression had moulded to fit that of confusion, "What's a telescope?" He asked with childish curiosity.

Once again, I sometimes forgot that he was twelve. I was the youngest of four children, so I didn't particularly know what it was like to have a younger sibling and I figured the relationship between Aerys and Steffon had been something of an Ersatz-sibling relationship or something along them lines.

It seems it was now up to me to carry on that particular duty, especially since I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Youngest child here, don't forget that.

"Far-Eyes." I replied easily enough.

"Then call them that then, not that strange word you used." He shook his head, coal black hair allowed to grow somewhat long being unsettled by the movement and the wind, "I've never heard anyone call Far-Eyes telescopes before. Stop inventing words."

I'm not inventing words you little bastard. Telescopes were telescopes, not this Far-Eyes the Myrish called them. I decided to add that to my list. If things that existed here were called something back home and existed here but by a different word? I was going to make sure that they started calling those things by word instead of the native one.

I allowed myself to sheepishly laugh some, "Sorry, sorry, but I can't promise anything."

Seagulls had become a regular sighting over the past few days and that had been the sign that they were nearing White Harbour. Ser Joffrey Bywater, the captain of the Conciliator, the war galley that I had commandeered for this journey north had been kind enough to tell him when they had entered northern waters and how far, by his estimation that they were from White Harbour.

Their constant squawking had become annoying enough over the past few days, and he had little time to get used to their calls. But he had found himself getting used the work of the sailors on the ships as they went about making sure that everything was nice and proper like.

I noticed that some of the sailors seemed to be doing something to the sail and that the oars had started to taper off in rhythm and the speed at which they were pulled. Since I didn't know jack about sailing, I decided to pull some random guy that probably knew what he was doing to the side and ask some rather pointed questions and hopefully get some answers.

Turns out the sailor I pulled from the side was less a sailor and more of a cabin boy than anything else. Samwell Waters. The bastard son of the captain of the ship, "My prince," the youth squeaked as he quickly inclined himself at the waist in a hurried bow, "How can I be of service?"

"You can straighten yourself up for starters." I told him. The whole bowing to me thing because I was royalty? I still wasn't used to it. People never bowed to me. It sort of made me feel a little awkward.

The boy nearly fell flat on his arse at how quickly he straightened himself up, his momentum nearly toppling himself backwards. Steffon had tried hard to stifle a chuckle but that had failed badly. I coffed him on the back of the head, "Hey!" The young lordling protested as he rubbed at the back of his head.

I ignored him as I directed my attention at the bastard cabin boy. Ser Joffrey immediately gained a notch of respect on my books. It's not every day you come across a highborn, no matter how big or small, especially as small as House Bywater was, taking care of his own gets.

Even if they were born outside the marriage bed.

The man needed a promotion, I decided. I motioned at the crewmen working at the sails, "What's happening?"

Samwell turned his head towards the crewmen and the sails. He licked at his lips as he answered, "Preparing to dock in White Harbour, my prince."

Dock? Eh no. Docking was bad. Travelling by ship was far faster than travelling by land to Winterfell, but I doubted a ship was as fast as a raven.

See, the reason why I had decided to sail to the north in the first place instead of getting myself a horse and some company was because there were a lot of castles, holdfasts and what not between King's Landing and Winterfell.

As I spent more time in Aerys' body, my mind and his mind living somewhat harmoniously in one head, probably because my mind was the dominant one, a lot of his memories had bled out to me over the past month. I learned quite a few things.

One of them was to make sure that the next chance I get, to check with a maester to make sure I hadn't caught any sot of venereal disease from the amount of women Aerys had shagged. Bloody hell, fourteen years of age and he had already shagged more women than I heard in twenty-five years of life.

My pride being hurt had tried to somewhat make me feel better about myself by telling me that Aerys was a prince. And most of the women he took to bed were servants. They couldn't very well deny a prince now, could they? Especially one as charming and handsome as Aerys, because I will admit this, Aerys was fine.

The white haired bastard made me feel jealous...and I was him. Bloody hell. Talk about narcissism taken to a whole new level.

Didn't stop me from checking myself out in the nearest mirror or other reflection giving surface and pouting and all that bullshit. The novelty of this action was going to ware off soon enough, but until then, I was going to keep checking myself out.

I had never thought myself particularly good looking back home...and now? Thank you whatever being that brought me here. Because let's face it, handsome people have it easy.

Right, back to why docking in White Harboru was bad. See, Rhaella might not have liked me, but she was a complete and utter daddy's girl. She adored Prince Jaehaerys, our Father. Even when he betrothed the two of us together, she couldn't bring herself to be mad at him for more than a few moments.

She hadn't even protested that much before quietly agreeing with our Father's wishes. I now regretted telling her about my plans to go north because she would most certainly have told someone by now of my intentions, especially after me leaving half-way through the night.

That's why I took a ship instead of going over land. Father would have sent messages to lords between me and Winterfell to hold me until someone came to fetch me and my two partners in crime. I hadn't told Rhaella how I planned on making my way north, but it didn't take much of a genius to figure out the quickest way would be the sea route.

So the Manderly's probably had received word to look out for me and detain me as well, or escort me back to King's Landing.

"Fuck that." I muttered underneath my breath.

Unfortunately, not quiet enough as Samwell looked up at me, perplexed, "My prince?"

"Tell the men that we are heading up the White Knife. Get us as close to Winterfell as possible."

"The White Knife? I'm only a cabin boy, I can't give such an order."

"Then tell such to your captain."

"At once, my prince." He turned on the balls of his feet, ready to run-off to find his father who also happened to be his captain.

"And Samwell?"

Before running off, he glanced back at me, "Yes, my prince?"

"Address me as 'Sir'. Less of a mouthful." I decided to go with the British route of addressing royalty. It was simple and not at all confusing or a mouthful.

The boy nodded, "Yes, my pr-Sir!" He stopped himself short before scurrying off.

Steffon raised an eyebrow, "When did you become a knight?"

"Sir," I stressed the word, "Not ser. There's a difference."

"How?"

"It's sir with an 'I'."

Steffon looked at me without much of an expression on his face. He then sighed and rubbed at the side of his temple, "Another one of those words you've invented isn't it? I thought you said you were going to stop that."

"I never said such a thing."

XxX

The White Knife was a large river, but the more they travelled further upstream towards Winterfell, it had slowly got narrower and narrower and more dangerous as well. The currents were swift and rocky shoots jutted out from underneath the river as the water got shallower further inland we went. It made rowing all the more dangerous as oars were in danger of being split and splintered.

Eventually, the anchor was dropped some few miles of one of the White Knife's offshoots that went west towards Castle Cerwyn. Thankfully, a small village happened to have been nearby and we were able to buy a few horses for my company that was going to head the rest of the way to Winterfell by land.

I could have easily commandeered the horses as not only a noble, but as royalty, but I was taking away some valuable animals from some hardworking farmers and fishermen. I had them compensated fairly.

I don't think any of them had ever seen a gold dragon before.

"What was your plan, exactly?" The famed future Lion of Casterly Rock asked as he rode beside me, not a few hours into our journey west towards Winterfell.

Ser Joffrey hadn't been all that willing to allow royalty and lordlings to leave his ship without some protection, so he had ordered a troop of marines to act as escort for us. They followed behind on foot. The villagers didn't have that many horses and I didn't want to buy all of them anyway.

And I hadn't exactly planned for the escorts anyway. Only enough horses for me, Steffon, Tywin and Ser Gwayne Gaunt. The young Kingsguard knight that had shadowed me all the way back from King's Landing that faithful knight.

From the look that came onto his face sometimes, I think he knew that he was well over his head. From what I could recall from Aerys' memories, he had only been recently inducted into the Order of the Kingsguard.

"Go north and find myself a Stark wife." I eyed Tywin from the corner of my eyes, "I think I have said this before Tywin. Even I know you can remember a little detail like that."

"It's not about what I cannot remember, it's about why you would want to come so far in search of a wife in the first place. There are close enough highborn ladies in the surrounding lands for you to take to wife."

"Ahh, but you see, none of them are a Stark."

A breeze of cold northern wind bit at our exposed skin. I shivered somewhat as I felt green eyes flecked with gold glance at me, "I fail to see how that is important."

Steffon sneezed from the other side of me, "Exactly what I've been saying! All he keeps saying is reasons. Whatever that means." He shook his head as he rubbed at his nose. I hope the little bastard hadn't caught a chill, but he seemed robust enough. Hell, he looked to have more muscle than me and Tywin. And we were older. I didn't want to fuck up the timeline that badly by killing of the only heir to Storm's End just like that, "And who exactly says that there is a Stark daughter for you to marry anyway? This is a waste of time."

"There are two Stark daughters. Lyarra and Branda Stark. Daughters of Rodrik Stark and Arya Flint." Tywin answered. He was quite for a moment, "I believe Lyarra has recently been married to her cousin Rickard Stark."

I grinned at Steffon, "See? This wasn't a waste of time at all. There's still a Stark to go around."

The heir to Storm's End ignored me and then proceeded to glare at Tywin past me, "How do you even know this? Seven hells, Ty, the north barely interacts with the south. I didn't even know about any marriage of the Stark heir to his cousin."

Rickard Stark married his cousin? Eh, that was just about as gross as the whole sister incest thing. Sure, some cultures from around the world thought that marrying cousins was fine, but certainly not me. Cousins were a little bit too close to home for me and my sensibilities.

But then again, genetics on planetos seemed to work to different rules from those of Earth. For a family that had been inbreeding for hundreds of years, perhaps even more with relatively little input of fresh blood, the Targaryens were certainly rather healthy considering everything else.

No webbed toes or fingers or anything like that.

I'd checked.

Thoroughly.

Everything seemed to be in fine working order. My mind as well. Hopefully, I didn't take on Aerys' propensity for madness when I get older.

"I thought of it required learning. To know of the affairs of the other Great Houses of the realm."

"Well, at least I now know at least how you spend your time. Reading and gossiping by the looks of it." Steffon then thumbed at me, "And he spends it at the nearest skirt he can find."

"Hey!" I objected, "That's not true!" Aerys actually did other things that chasing after the serving girls and ladies of court. Like being a dutiful squire for his uncle Prince Duncan, attending to his studies...which he wasn't all that diligent in.

Could have been worse, I suppose.

The north was vast. Much of the land was uncultivated and somewhat surprisingly, it sort of reminded me of Scotland or northern England. Hell, the constant barrage of green we saw as we made our way towards Winterfell made me think of the Yorkshire country side.

It had a certain beauty to it.

Much of the land was green and from the occasional village with farms and the lot that we passed, it was easy enough to tell that the northerners could grow shit up here. If they actually cultivated most of their land with larger fields and the likes, I was sure that when winter came, it wouldn't be so bad.

Then I realised of the technological limitations they had. Yes, they had the plough, but that could only take you so far, and they sowed their seeds manually, no seed drill or the likes.

The seed drill did wonders when it came to increasing productivity and the yield of plants harvested by damn near nine times. That was also one thing I planned to introduce.

One of the subjects we had learned in History class during my time in school was about the Agrarian Revolution in Britain, along with the Industrial Revolution, after all, the two revolutions were connected with each other. Without the former, the latter wouldn't have happened as easily as it had come.

Although some of the information was missing from my memory, I was sure with a maester at hand and a good blacksmith, we would be able to come to some sort of working seed drill.

A fog had descended during the night when they had made camp and when they had woken up, the fog still hung about. We had made small progress in the early hours of the morning due to that, but as the day became longer, the fog dissipitated.

When it had completely cleared, I don't think I was the only one to notice the large shadow that loomed in the distance. I squinted my eyes, as if that would help see the shadow any clearer than it already was, "Binoculars, or even a telescope! How I would kill for such a thing." Perhaps I could be able to get some Myrish glass-makers to make me some binoculars? I had tried the telescope and I didn't like it.

I'm sure I could explain how a binocular functioned...probably. Leave the rest to them. And why would I have to Myr for such a thing anyway? Why not get it done by good westerosi hands?

Steffon made a sound as he looked into the distance as well, "Would that be Winterfell then?"

"Too far to tell, but it is said that Winterfell is the greatest castle of the north." Tywin looked at the shadow in the distance with a look that was completely passive of any other emotion. No doubt, Winterfell didn't compare all that much to Casterly Rock.

A horse behind us neighed as Ser Gwayne cantered forth, his head looking off into the distance, but not in the direction of the shadow, "Riders, my prince."

"Sir," I corrected the knight as I and the others looked in the direction he was staring off in. And he was right, there were riders coming our way, banners flapping and swaying in the wind. As they got closer, the banner became clearer, a grey direwolf on white, "Stark men." I grinned, "Shall we go meet them?"

"Why bother? They are coming to us, are they not?" Steffon asked, thankfully, whatever chill he had got disappearing over the past few days.

He was right, so we waited for them to come to us. It was a company of five men...I supposed it would be more accurate to call them a section instead of a company...or a fireteam if we really want to get technical, even if they didn't have any form of fire-arms.

Pretty sure a squad was only considered a squad when there was ten people or something. Most war RPGs I played had ten soldiers in a squad, but I'm getting off topic, so here we were, waiting for the section of five men to come to us.

The riders slowed down from the gallop they had been riding in before coming to a slow trot then stopping in front of us. In the lead was a man who seemed to of an age with my Father, perhaps, the grey hairs at the side of his slicked back brown hair made it difficult to tell. He had a small scar just underneath his eye and he was dressed in heavy wools and a fur wolf-pelt cloak.

Grey eyes seemed to take us all in for a moment before they settled on me. In a moment, I figured the man had sized me up and quickly decided that if we came to blows, he would be able to break me over his knee like a twig.

I was of the same mind.

"So I suspect you would be the princeling that has the capital all in a fluster." The man said, speaking first.

I'm pretty sure I heard some gasps from my entourage and even the northmen that had accompanied this man seemed to widen their eyes at the supposed rudeness of this manner. I decided then and there that I liked him.

"Is it?" I asked, "The capital I mean. All flustered up?"

An amused looking smile came across the man's face, "Not every day a raven from the Crown Prince himself perches in our little coop telling us to be aware of the coming of his son." He leaned forward on his horse, "So why are you here then, Prince Aerys?"

"I believe we are at a disadvantage my lord," Tywin cut in, voice as calm and emotionless as ever. The man's head panned towards the golden haired lion, "It seems as if you are knowing of us, but the same cannot be said of us."

"Gods lad, speak with a bit more warmth would you? I'm a Stark and I don't think I've ever heard anyone speak as cold as you." He shook his head for a moment before locking eyes with each and every one of them, "Rodrik Stark. Some men call me the Wandering Wolf."

I blinked, "Oh, then this makes this easy then."

He raised a single eyebrow of the same colouring of his hair, "Makes what easier?"

"Ser Rodrik-."

He stopped me there with a wave of the hand, "None of that 'ser' nonesense. Do I look like a Manderly or a southron knight?"

"Eh no, I guess not." I cleared my throat before deciding to address him once more, "Lord Rodrik," The man grinned, "I was hoping to have your daughter's hand in marriage. The unmarried one that is."

The northern wolf raised another eyebrow. Behind him, his men let out gasps of shock. I'm sure some of the men behind us did as well, "You want to marry my daughter?"

"Yes. Branda, if I remember her name correctly."

"You remember true." He rubbed at his shaven chin, "Are you not betrothed though? To the Princess Rhaella?"

"Who is my sister. I'm not at all enthused to that idea." I sighed, "I wouldn't have made this journey other wise. So how about it, will you have me as your goodson?"

His answer came rather quicker than I thought it would.

All he did was merely shrug his shoulders and utter the words, "Yeah. Alright, why not?"

And like that, it seemed as if I had found myself a northern bride.

Well, that had been easier than I thought it would be.