Raymun discovered at eight years old that his mother considered rest a skill.
He disagreed.
“You cannot be bad at resting.”
Mara looked at the ledger in front of him.
“You are.”
“I am sitting.”
“You’re working.”
“Sitting is resting.”
“Put it away.”
Raymun looked down at the page.
He had almost finished comparing three months of grain purchases.
“I’m nearly done.”
“Raymun.”
“Five minutes.”
Mara took the ledger.
Raymun stared at the empty space where it had been.
“That was rude.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I need that.”
“You need sunlight.”
“I was outside this morning.”
“You checked the garden.”
“That counts.”
“No.”
Raymun looked toward Garran for support.
His father was drinking ale.
“Don’t involve me.”
“Coward.”
“Alive coward.”
Mara pointed toward the door.
“Outside.”
Raymun sighed.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Mara stared at him.
That, apparently, was the wrong question.
The problem was that Raymun always had something to do.
Not because the Briar Hearth was unusually demanding.
It was simply an inn.
There was always wood to stack, water to carry, tables to clean, accounts to check, vegetables to tend, rooms to prepare, horses to feed, deliveries to receive, repairs to make.
And when ordinary work ended, Raymun had created entirely new categories of work for himself.
The Journal.
The Lawbook.
Property records.
Supplier records.
Experiments.
Road information.
Commercial observations.
Questions for Edwyn.
Questions for Mara.
Questions for Garran.
Questions for travelers.
Questions about questions.
There was always something.
The future made that worse.
Raymun remembered enough to know Westeros would not remain peaceful forever.
Robert Baratheon sat the Iron Throne.
Jon Arryn still served as Hand.
The great houses remained where Raymun expected them.
Somewhere across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys Targaryen was growing older.
Eventually—
He stopped.
No.
Mara had confiscated the ledger.
He was supposed to be doing nothing.
Raymun stood in the yard.
He had no idea how.
“Ray!”
Bran came running down the road.
Raymun immediately regretted leaving the inn.
Bran stopped in front of him.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“River.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s there.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
“It is if you’re not boring.”
Raymun folded his arms.
“What are we doing?”
“Fishing.”
“Do you have hooks?”
“Yes.”
“Line?”
“Yes.”
“Bait?”
Bran paused.
Raymun smiled.
“No.”
“We’ll find worms.”
“Do you have permission?”
Bran looked offended.
“Of course.”
“From whom?”
“Myself.”
Raymun turned toward the inn.
“Mara!”
Bran grabbed him.
“No!”
They acquired permission eventually.
Mara insisted Ellyn could go.
Raymun objected.
Ellyn objected to his objection.
Then Alys happened to arrive with her father, heard the argument, and was somehow included too.
What began as Bran dragging Raymun to the river became four children walking through the countryside carrying fishing poles, food, and far more confidence than competence.
Garran watched them leave.
“Back before dark!”
“We know!” Raymun shouted.
“And keep Ellyn out of the river!”
“I know!”
Ellyn shouted, “I can swim!”
Raymun turned.
“No, you can’t.”
“I can.”
“You absolutely cannot.”
“I can in shallow water.”
“That’s called walking.”
Alys laughed.
The stream Bran called a river was not a river.
Raymun informed him of this.
Bran did not care.
That was sufficient.
They found a shaded bank beneath several trees.
Bran immediately began digging for worms.
Ellyn refused.
“Disgusting.”
“You ate one when you were little,” Raymun said.
Ellyn froze.
Alys looked at her.
“You did?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I was a baby.”
“You were four.”
“I was little.”
“You said Bran dared you.”
Ellyn pointed at him.
“He did.”
Bran looked proud.
Raymun shook his head.
Some stories deserved preservation more than legal records.
Fishing was terrible.
Raymun had fished on Earth perhaps three times.
That made him the most experienced person present.
Unfortunately, most of his Earth fishing experience involved equipment unavailable to an eight-year-old innkeeper’s son in Westeros.
Bran tangled his line.
Ellyn lost her bait.
Alys caught a branch.
Raymun caught nothing.
For nearly an hour.
Bran became increasingly offended.
“There are no fish.”
“There are fish.”
“Then they’re cowards.”
“They’re fish.”
“Coward fish.”
Ellyn threw a pebble into the water.
Raymun stared at her.
“What?”
“You’re frightening them.”
“Good.”
“We’re trying to catch them.”
“Then they should come closer.”
Raymun rubbed his face.
Eventually Alys caught the first fish.
A tiny one.
Barely longer than Raymun’s hand.
Bran stared at it.
“How?”
Alys stared back.
“I waited.”
“We were all waiting.”
“You were talking.”
Bran looked betrayed.
Raymun helped remove the hook.
They released the fish.
Bran protested.
“We could eat that.”
“That wouldn’t feed Ronan.”
“It could feed Ellyn.”
Ellyn kicked him.
Bran chased her.
Raymun shouted after them.
“Stay away from the deep water!”
Alys sat beside him.
“You sound like your father.”
Raymun looked horrified.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Alys smiled.
For a while, nothing happened.
Actually nothing.
No customers.
No calculations.
No System.
No discussion of land.
No looming commercial problem.
The water moved past them.
Leaves shifted overhead.
Somewhere farther downstream, Bran and Ellyn were arguing about whether a particular stone belonged to one of them.
Raymun lay back in the grass.
He watched clouds.
It felt strange.
On Earth, he had wasted enormous amounts of time.
Videos.
Games.
Scrolling through his phone.
Reading arguments between strangers he would never meet.
He hadn’t considered it wasting time while doing it.
It had simply been life.
Here, time felt different.
Every hour seemed expensive.
There was too much he knew might happen.
Too much he didn’t know.
Too much he wanted to build before the world became dangerous.
Sometimes he felt as though an invisible clock followed him.
Not the System.
Himself.
Prepare.
Learn.
Grow.
Save.
Build.
Because someday—
“Raymun.”
He opened his eyes.
Alys was looking at him.
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking.”
Raymun stared.
“I am allowed to think.”
“Your face looks angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Worried, then.”
Raymun looked back at the sky.
Alys returned to her fishing.
He appreciated that.
Bran returned carrying a frog.
Ellyn followed.
“No.”
Raymun said it immediately.
Bran stopped.
“I didn’t even ask.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask if we could bring it home.”
Bran frowned.
“How did you know?”
“Because you’re holding a frog.”
Ellyn crouched beside it.
“We should name him.”
“No.”
“Ser Frog.”
Alys laughed.
Bran lifted the frog.
“Ser Frog of the River.”
“Stream,” Raymun corrected.
“Ser Frog of the River.”
“That’s not a river.”
The frog escaped.
Ellyn screamed.
Bran dove after it.
Alys laughed harder.
Raymun eventually did too.
They caught three fish before afternoon.
Two were too small.
One was large enough to keep.
Bran carried it proudly as though he’d personally conquered the Stepstones.
“You didn’t catch it,” Ellyn said.
“I helped.”
“You held the basket.”
“Important job.”
Alys had caught the fish.
She didn’t seem particularly concerned with receiving credit.
Raymun noticed.
Then stopped himself from turning that observation into an appraisal.
Today was supposed to be a day off.
They ate bread and cheese beneath the trees.
Ellyn had somehow brought two Briar Drops.
Raymun stared.
“Where did you get those?”
She immediately put one in her mouth.
“Ellyn.”
“Mmm?”
“You stole them.”
She shook her head.
“Then where?”
She pointed at Mara’s wrapped food.
“Mother gave them.”
Raymun inspected the bundle.
There was a folded scrap of parchment beneath the cloth.
He opened it.
Mara’s handwriting:
Share.
Raymun looked at the single remaining sweet.
Then at the four children.
Bran noticed.
“So?”
Raymun broke it into three pieces.
One for Bran.
One for Alys.
One for himself.
Ellyn had already eaten hers.
“That isn’t equal,” Bran said.
“Ellyn’s was separate.”
“Why?”
“Ask Mother.”
“I will.”
“You absolutely should.”
Raymun hoped Mara would hit him with the spoon.
They returned near sunset.
One fish.
Dirty clothes.
Wet boots.
A collection of stones Ellyn insisted were valuable.
No profit.
No useful information.
No new contacts.
No progress toward acquiring more land.
No System Points.
It had been an objectively unproductive day.
Mara was waiting outside.
“Enjoy yourselves?”
Bran lifted the fish.
“We conquered the river.”
“Stream,” Raymun said.
Bran elbowed him.
Mara looked at Raymun.
“And you?”
Raymun hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That was all.
That night, Raymun reached for the ledger Mara had confiscated.
It was back on the table.
He opened it.
Three months of grain purchases.
He stared at the numbers.
Then closed it.
Tomorrow.
The word came easily.
Not with the exhausted resignation of his old apartment.
Not work again tomorrow.
Simply tomorrow.
The accounts would still exist.
The weeds would grow.
Travelers would arrive.
Ronan would probably wake everyone before sunrise.
Ellyn would steal something.
Bran would challenge him.
Alys would notice something everyone else missed.
There would be work.
There would always be work.
Raymun went upstairs.
He almost opened the Journal.
Instead, he went to bed.
For once, the future could wait until morning.