The gardens of Aegon Fort were a deceptive place, smelling sweetly of blooming jasmine and crushed mint while sitting atop a cliff of cold grey stone that overlooked the churning, grey-green waters of Blackwater Bay.
I sat upon a low stone bench shaded by trailing grapevines, a block of seasoned applewood in my left hand and a short, razor-sharp iron dagger in my right.
It was a remarkably peaceful evening, the kind of quiet hour where a man might almost forget that half the lords in the realm were currently plotting treason, poisoning their rivals, or marrying off their daughters for a sack of turnips and a rusty breastplate.
The air was cool against my skin, carrying a faint tang of salt and ancient dust, and the surrounding plants rustled gently in the breeze.
What made the whole scene truly magnificent, however, was the gloriously fat, midnight-black tomcat currently sprawled across my lap like a melting pool of ink.
Ah, life is genuinely good when you have a warm, fat bastard occupying your thighs and zero immediate responsibilities demanding your attention.
People back in my old world would have cheerfully murdered their own grandmothers for an opportunity like this, and to be entirely honest, I probably would have done the same.
That was precisely why I tried to savor every single ridiculous moment of this bizarre second chance.
Who could possibly guess how long it would take for some random dysentery, a stray crossbow bolt, or a jealous uncle to violently cut my existence short in a savage, godforsaken world like this one?
Hopefully, I would last a very long time, maybe even clear a century or two, though expecting a medieval peasant’s dietary baseline to support a cyborg lifespan was pushing my luck.
Even if I somehow managed to drag this feudal rock kicking and screaming into an industrial revolution, some fundamental truths of existence would remain utterly impossible to fix.
Not that living forever was some grand, romantic dream of mine anyway.
To my sensibilities, true immortality sounded like a profoundly lonely, torturous existence, sitting on a lonely rock while you watch all your friends, lovers, and descendants die off one by one until you are the only idiot left standing at the end of time.
To me, living forever was a cosmic curse, something I wouldn’t wish upon my absolute worst enemy, though admittedly I did not hate anyone enough to curse them with eternal life.
The absolute worst part of immortality would probably be drifting aimlessly through dead, freezing space after the cold death of the universe had utterly obliterated every star, planet, and galaxy in existence.
As I sat there brooding over the cosmic heat death of the cosmos, long, curly shavings of pale applewood cascaded from my knife blade, raining down softly onto the fat black cat sleeping in my lap.
Within minutes, its sleek black fur was thoroughly blanketed by a heavy layer of sawdust and wood curls, making the beast look like a bizarre, furry pastry dusted with powdered sugar.
I kept carving away at the hollow piece of cylindrical wood, my thumb sliding smoothly along the surface which had grown satiny and warm from repeated friction.
Some work still needed to be done before it would produce anything resembling a proper note.
Alas, it was going to take me an agonizingly long time to shape the bore correctly simply because the proper precision tools did not exist anywhere within a thousand leagues of this damp castle.
As for what exactly I was crafting in total secrecy, it was a simple wooden flute.
While I had never formally taken lessons on wood carving, a flute seemed simple enough to figure out through trial and error.
You just needed to hollow out a tube, shape the embouchure hole, and space the finger holes correctly along the barrel.
Did flutes even exist in Westeros yet?
I honestly did not think so, though perhaps some exotic bards carried them in distant, decadent trade cities like Yi Ti across the narrow sea, but they were certainly unheard of among the illiterate brutes living on this continent.
Then again, maybe flutes did exist and I had simply forgotten about them because they were utterly minor details in the grand sweep of history.
Picking up the rough wooden cylinder, I placed my fingertips against the curved surface to estimate the spacing, marking out the positions for the stops with the tip of my dagger.
To craft a truly magnificent, resonant flute, I really needed to get my hands on some hollow bamboo stalks, but those slender tropical grasses certainly did not grow wild on the wind-swept cliffs of King’s Landing.
Still, this seasoned applewood would work well enough for a rustic, side-blown wooden pipe reminiscent of the simple instruments carved by forest dwellers.
“There you well are!” The sharp, feminine voice shattered the quiet tranquility of the garden and startled me so badly that my hand jerked.
The knife blade slipped, narrowly avoiding slicing clean through the side of the flute body.
I let out a long, shaky breath, thanking whatever invisible guardian angel watched over careless idiots that I had managed to stop the blade in time to save hours of tedious carving.
Turning my head toward the source of the interruption, I found none other than Alyssa Velaryon striding down the gravel path, her golden hair glowing like spun copper under the warm rays of the fading sun.
It took me a full second to realize she wasn’t yelling at me, but rather glaring down at the furry disaster currently buried under a drift of wood shavings in my lap.
“You’re searching all over the keep for him again, aren’t you?” I asked lazily, pointing my chin at the fat black cat, who hadn’t even bothered to twitch an ear at the commotion.
Alyssa stopped beside the stone bench, nodding vigorously as her slightly curled ringlets bobbed up and down with the motion.
“Ever since you gave this little monster to me, he refuses to stay put in my solar!
He keeps slipping out the window every time my maids turn their backs, and I have to chase him all over the bailey.” Her lips were downturned in an adorable pout of sheer frustration as she sank down onto the grass beside the bench, her bright blue dress rustling softly as the fabric smoothed against the dirt.
“I suppose he just has an adventurous soul and likes to be free,” I offered with an innocent shrug.
Yeah I really doubted that.
The only adventurous things this fat bastard could like was maybe venturing out into the kitchens.
She shook her head with a wry smile, looking down past my hands to study the sleeping cat.
Her dark eyebrows raised in sudden amusement as she finally noticed that the animal was completely coated in a thick layer of pale sawdust.
Flicking her curious purple gaze upward from the cat to the hollow piece of wood resting in my fingers, the young Velaryon tilted her head.
“What on earth are you making there, Maegor?” I turned the wooden cylinder over in my palm, examining the grain before holding it out toward her, our fingers accidentally brushing against each other in the warm evening air.
She furrowed her smooth brow in deep concentration as she took the piece of wood, rotating it between her fingers and running her delicate hands over the smooth, sanded surface.
“Is this supposed to be some sort of weapon?” She handed it back to me, her striking purple eyes locking onto mine with a sharp twinge of suspicion and curiosity flickering in their depths.
“Well, in the hands of a sufficiently unhinged person, almost anything can be used as a lethal weapon if you try hard enough,” I replied with a lazy shrug, balancing the wood back down on the fat back of the sleeping cat.
The sudden movement caused a small avalanche of wood chips to slide off the cat’s furry back and tumble into the grass as I tried to balance my project.
Alyssa snorted softly, her lips spreading into a bright, genuine smile as she reached out and hit me a playful smack on the shoulder.
I dramatically winced and clutched my arm as if I had been struck by a warhammer, only for her to roll her eyes and hit me again for good measure.
“Stop acting like that and just tell me what it is before I lose patience.” “Keep your royal skirts on,” I chuckled, dodging a third swipe with my arms raised.
“It’s supposed to be a musical instrument.” “An instrument?” she repeated, her head tilting to the side in confusion.
I nodded encouragingly in response.
She stared at the carved cylinder again.
“Is it supposed to be a piece of something much bigger like a harp or a drum?
It doesn’t look like any instrument I’ve ever seen in the keep.” Smirking, I traced the faint outline of the embouchure hole with my thumb.
“You will see when it is finally finished.
The sound it makes will be completely unlike anything you or anyone else in this damp castle has ever heard before.” The girl raised a deeply skeptical eyebrow at my bold declaration, though a hint of intrigue lingered in her expression.
She shrugged carelessly and leaned back against the stone base of the bench.
“Well then, I suppose I shall just have to wait around for you to complete your mysterious project.” Humming softly in agreement, I picked up my iron knife and set back to work, smoothing down the exterior curves of the wood.
The applewood felt good in my grip, smooth and cool, though it could definitely use a bit more fine-tuning before I burned the tone holes through.
The black cat let out a deep, rumbling purr from my lap, its heavy, warm mass spreading out across my thighs as if it weighed fifty pounds.
Clearly, the furry black bastard thoroughly enjoyed being covered in fresh wood shavings, and it was a public service I was more than happy to continue providing.
I continued to carve in comfortable silence, deliberately ignoring the way Alyssa kept staring at my face with a look of intense, contemplation.
There were far more important things for a growing prince to worry about than the lingering gaze of a highborn girl.
Crafting this flute was mostly an exercise in reclaiming a tiny sliver of emotional sanity through sentimental value rather than serving any practical political purpose.
While people back home might assume that being magically reincarnated into a brutal medieval fantasy world would be endlessly thrilling, the reality of it was often tedious, punctuated by moments of stark terror.
My early toddler years had been an absolute psychological nightmare of royal paranoia and damp swaddling clothes, but my current life was packed so tightly with daily responsibilities that I barely had a spare moment to get bored.
Between rigorous physical training with veteran knights, bantering with the other aristocratic boys in the corridors, driving the castle servants half-insane with my modern sarcastic wit, and studying grand strategy, my schedule was completely maxed out.
Still, taking an hour to carve a simple wooden pipe felt like a necessary anchor to keep my sanity intact.
“Do you ever wonder who you are going to end up getting betrothed to, Maegor?” Alyssa asked suddenly, shattering the quiet atmosphere of the garden.
There was a strange, guarded expression flickering across her features as she posed the question.
I paused my knife blade mid-stroke, taking a moment to carefully contemplate my answer before speaking.
I turned the wood over in my fingers.
“Since I am only the second son of the king, there will not be nearly as many rigid political restrictions placed on my marriage options compared to Aenys.
Because I don’t have to carry the entire weight of the succession on my shoulders, I will probably get to marry someone I actually care about, or perhaps take more than one wife if the mood strikes me, who knows.” I answered simply, picking right back up where I left off with the wood-shaving.
The exterior surface was nearly as smooth as glass now, meaning the delicate work of burning out the finger holes was fast approaching.
The young Velaryon stared at me in absolute, open-mouthed shock upon hearing my casual declaration.
She sputtered for a second, her eyes widening to the size of silver stags as she processed the words.
“Two wives?” I offered an easy, unbothered shrug, though internally I couldn’t help but wonder why she was acting so astounded in a dynasty founded by a guy who literally married two sister-wives at the same time.
“That is honestly on the lower end.
If my royal father could openly take two wives and rule half the continent, why shouldn’t I do the exact same thing when I grow up?” Bitches be scared, because I am coming for you.
Alyssa continued to sit there gaping at me like a fish dragged out of Blackwater Bay, her jaw hanging slack as she tried to reconcile my absurd statement with reality.
After several long, agonizing moments of stunned silence, she finally managed to reboot her brain, leaning back against the bench and shaking her head with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.
Seeing that she was temporarily rendered speechless, I happily returned my attention to the applewood cylinder.
“I..
do not even know what to say to you anymore,” she whispered, pausing before shaking her head again with a small, helpless smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“You are such a weird boy, Maegor.” Once more, she let out a soft sigh, staring at me for a beat longer before throwing her head back and bursting into bright, musical laughter that echoed off the grey stone walls of the courtyard.
I waited patiently for her laughing fit to subside before offering a nonchalant shrug.
“Weird is good, and being eccentric is even better.
It simply means you aren’t boring, or mediocre.” Setting the half-finished flute down on the bench for a moment, I leaned back and looked over at Alyssa, who was studying me with a strange, complicated mixture of amusement and deep admiration shining in her purple eyes.
The moment made me pause, forcing me to reflect briefly on my previous life.
Every single calculated move I made, every secret network I built, and every eccentric hobby I picked up stemmed from an overwhelming desire to be fundamentally different, to rise above the miserable herd.
I refused to live like the wretched masses who sleepwalked through their entire existence without ambition, trapped forever in a dismal purgatory of mediocrity and ambiguity.
The unexamined life is truly not worth living.
To my way of thinking, human existence was entirely about seizing every available opportunity by the throat and wringing every drop of agency out of the universe.
The moment a man gave up on that relentless drive and settled for the path of least resistance was the moment he spiritually died.
In a strange way, it reminded me of those famous historical quotes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, where he explained that he spent his youth buried in dark cafes and dusty libraries, reading and studying until there simply were nothing left to learn.
“To settle for ordinary in a world as brutal, bloody, and unforgiving as this one was nothing more than slowly dying by degrees.” I stated simply.
“Well,” Alyssa murmured softly, breaking the lingering silence as she reached over to gently pat the head of the sleeping black cat, which didn’t even twitch its sawdust-covered ears.
“If your mysterious wooden flute turns out to be half as pretentious as your grand speeches about destiny, I suppose it might actually be worth listening to.” “Oh, it will be magnificent,” I promised her with a grin, picking up my knife once more to carve the final details into the wood.
“Just you wait.” Why could no one appreciate my motivational, main character speeches!
Maybe giving them to a ten year old wasn’t the best idea.